Territory
by Niente Zero
Summary: Ray and Fraser are sent back to Fraser's old home town to investigate a major crime. Meeting up with old friends and facing off against an old enemy, can they find their rhythm in time to solve the mystery before deadly peril strikes? Now complete.
1. The Fatcat Calls the Shots

Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush.

Chapter 1 - The Fatcat Calls the Shots

It was five in the morning when Detective Raymond Vecchio found himself in the not unusual position of racing down a Chicago back alley many yards behind his friend and partner, Constable Benton Fraser, in a foot race that he would never win, ruining another perfectly good pair of Italian loafers.

Benton Fraser was in pursuit of a man who had broken into a number of local jewelry stores. Fraser and Vecchio had been able to track him due to the pattern that the thefts formed, centered around a local bakery where the thief habitually bought a bagel before pulling each job. Unfortunately, although they were able to predict the next target correctly, they were only in time to set off on foot after the thief had already broken into the store and filled his bag with high-end jewels. Benton's wolf, Diefenbaker, was just ahead of him, looking back as if to tell his master to pick up the pace.

The three men and a wolf entered a blind alley. The jewel thief turned, a look of desperation on his face, and pulled a wicked looking knife from his waistband.

"Get outta my way." he yelled, slashing it in front of him dramatically.

Benton sighed and stepped to one side of the man, taking hold of his knife arm almost casually and forcing him to drop the knife. The movement was as fluid and lacking in weight as a man opening a door or stepping out of the way of a baby stroller. Ray Vecchio had now caught up, and taking the thief's other arm, soon had him cuffed.

Back at the station, the thief was quickly booked into the system, and Ray was shooting the breeze with the civilian clerical aide Elaine about the pain of working the early shift, when Lieutenant Welsh, his superior officer, opened the door of his private office and yelled.

"Vecchio. Get in here. Bring the mountie." His expression was both grim and impatient, which told Ray nothing, because he was on the end of similar glares all too often.

Ray and Benton entered the office, and Welsh silently motioned for Ray to close the door. There was a fourth man sitting in one of Welsh's guest chairs, a gray haired man in an expensive suit. He did not move to greet either Ray or Fraser.

The two men stood, Ray projecting discomfort and Fraser with the air of a man who could stand in the same place for days without showing a hint of distress.

Welsh shuffled papers on his desk for a few moments that seemed to stretch out intolerably to Ray, who was wondering just what he'd done this time to earn the ire of his superior. For once, his conscience was pretty clear. Finally, Welsh lifted up the morning's Tribune. The front page headline read "Oil Rig Disaster Hits Canada." The photograph showed an icy scene where men in heavy clothes appeared to be working cleanup on a huge spill.

Benton Fraser stepped forward quickly.

"May I?"

He took the proffered paper from Welsh and his eyes scanned rapidly over the article and photograph. Apparently after several smaller acts of sabotage on drilling platforms operating on ice formed over the arctic ocean someone had managed to blow up enough of the ice base under one platform to destabilize it, causing a large spill and a lot of equipment to be lost into the water, not to mention killing two workers and injuring several others.

Fraser's face showed only intense interest and concentration. These were the people of his childhood homeland, but it was not his way to show every emotion on the surface. He held the paper close, peering at one of the men in the photograph who were identified in the caption as volunteers working to prevent further oil damage and clean up the worst that had been done.

The article said that a radical environmental group calling itself Arctic Defence had claimed credit for the previous attacks, and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were waiting to hear if they would claim this latest, more serious crime.

Fraser handed the newspaper to Ray, who was jiggling restlessly beside him. The Mountie looked up at Welsh.

"This is a very serious situation, Sir. But I don't quite understand why you called us in here."

Welsh rumpled his hand through his hair and sighed. He turned to the gray haired man.

"Detective Vecchio, Constable Fraser, I'd like you to meet Gerard Francis."

The man stood and offered his hand to Vecchio and Fraser in turn.

"I'm glad to meet you boys." he looked weary and his voice was soft but authoritative.

"This thing," he gestured at the paper. "This terrorist thing or whatever it was, well, my boy and his new wife were up in the territories on an adventure honeymoon." he shrugged as if to say "kids these days."

"I told them it was dangerous, but I was expecting polar bears, not oil rig explosions. Now my daughter-in-law is in hospital and my son is going crazy. Listen, no offence," he nodded in Fraser's direction, "but hell if I'm going to leave finding the scum who did this in the hands of the Canadians. I make a few calls and I hear that there's already this Chicago detective working with a Canadian liaison, so I pull some strings."

Ray was looking increasingly cynical as he took in the man's visible wealth, and heard his safe assumptions that he'd be able to get what he wanted, even if it meant having the police jump to his whims.

"The upshot, boys, is that I cleared it with your bosses to have you go up and work with the team that's already in place."

Ray looked at Welsh with disbelief. Strings must have been pulled in very high places to clear that kind of intereference with a major operation. This was going to be hell. No-one already up there would welcome two officers sent from Chicago to babysit, not even if one of them was a mountie.

"Sir, can we talk alone?" he asked.

Welsh nodded, and turned to Gerard Francis. "A minute, please. I'm sure Elaine will be happy to get you a coffee."

Benton turned to leave too. Ray grabbed his arm. "Not you, dummy, just the fatcat." he said, after closing the door on Francis.

"Are you serious?" he exploded, to Welsh. "He can't just order the Chicago PD to send people over national borders, and order the mounties to hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya' with us."

Welsh glared.

"As you might have gathered, he can. And whether I like it or not, there's not a damn thing I can do about it. So think of it as a free trip to the land of moose and ... well, whatever the hell else is up north of the arctic circle. Now, Elaine already booked plane tickets for this afternoon, so I suggest you get off your high horse, go charge your jewel thief, and go home and pack."

His tone was clearly of dismissal. Ray made a cluck of disapproval and turned to stalk out. Benton Fraser hesitated a moment to salute Welsh and say "Thank you, sir."

"Yeah, well. You keep my officer safe up there, OK?" Welsh said. "And watch your own back. Ray's not wrong that this will put noses out of joint."

"Yes, sir!" the mountie saluted once more, crisply, before following Ray to his desk.

Welsh watched him go with an expression of wry amusement. Ray Vecchio's "screw you" attitude was pretty easy to deal with. He reacted to authority with opposition, which was par for the course in Welsh's experience. The mountie, on the other hand, appeared to crave approval from anyone in authority, whether they technically had authority over him or not. Welsh couldn't help but be fond of the young man, but often found himself baffled by his actions. He was hard put to remember the last time one of his own men had saluted him in a fashion that wasn't entirely redolent of sarcasm.

Ray drove Benton to his apartment so that he could pack.

"So, what, we're going above the arctic circle. What'm I going to need?" Ray asked. "Long johns, snow pants, a balaclava?"

Benton smiled.

"I think you have some misconceptions about the far North, Ray. It's summer time, and contrary to popular belief, the Northwest Territories get quite warm in summer. Why, Tuktoyaktuk has a daily average in July of 10.9 degrees celcius, with an average maximum of 15.3 degrees celcius and an average minimum of 6.4 degrees celcius."

Seeing Ray's confused expression, he elaborated. With some quick mental calculation he added, "So, in the American system, which by the way, is quite a bit less logical than celcius, which is a decimal based system with a freezing point of zero and a boiling point of one hundred, the temperature this month is usually between fifty to sixty degrees fahrenheit, and shouldn't get much lower than forty three degrees fahrenheit."

Ray was looking at him like he had two heads. Fraser figured he'd probably lost him some time back in the temperature conversions. "What I'm saying, Ray, is that you'll probably be fine in jeans and a sweater. Or a wool suit, for that matter, if you must."

"I got it. It's still warm enough that a guy can dress sharp. Who knew?" Ray said, as he dropped Benton in front of his building.

After packing a meagre bag containing the bare minimum needed for a week away from home, Fraser went down to the street to buy a copy of the Tribune to read while waiting for Ray to pick him up for the trip to the airport. He stared at the front page so intently on the way back to his apartment that he missed saying good morning to the startled tenants who greeted him and usually received a warm "good morning" in reply.

He sat down with his back against his bed and read the article over. It was the photograph that drew most of his attention, though. Although small and blurry, one of the figures stood out to him. It was a large man, with dark hair and eyes, and a cruel thin twist of a mouth. Benton felt that he would know that man anywhere, even though he hadn't seen him in many years. Carl Johnson. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. As a boy Carl had been a vicious bully. Some part of Benton was sounding an ominous warning at the sight of that face. He dismissed the uneasiness as a reversion to the time when he was a child and barely able to defend himself.

The last Benton had heard of Johnson had not been good. After the older boy had left school, he'd apparently slid into drinking and petty crime. What was he doing volunteering for wildlife cleanup? Benton's gut feeling told him that it would be worthwhile to find the man and ask him some pointed questions. Whether he could persuade the operational team that this was worth the time was another question.

**Author's notes: This is set in an imaginary summer that occurs in the middle of season 1. It must suck to be stuck in Chicago in winter all the time. It might help to read my previous story, Otterly Ridiculous, as it contains some background for this story, but it's not mandatory. This story will contain spoilers for The Blue Line because I really liked the guest character, Mark Smithbauer. Otherwise, I don't think it's too spoilery for any other episodes. The story will be nine chapters long, all of which I have already drafted thanks to needing relief from work nearly giving me a nervous breakdown this week. It's nice to go hang out with Ray and Frase when all else is going crazy around me! Please review if you feel so inclined- I'm always interested to hear feedback.**


	2. Brief Encounters

Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush.

Chapter 2 - Brief Encounters

Much as Fraser had feared, the RCMP were conducting their operation out of Tuktoyaktuk because it was the closest piece of civilization, no matter how small, to the oil fields much farther north where the crippling destruction had happened. It would have been easier if they'd settled for Inuvik, which had a decent sized population, not every one of whom knew his name and family history, but in this midsummer heat it was cut off from Tuk by every means of transport but plane. In the winter it was possible to drive, although not everyone wanted to brave a road made of ice reinforced with more ice over arctic depths.

The flights from Chicago to Edmonton and Edmonton to Inuvik had largely been taken up with Ray's kvetching about exactly what sort of man had the money and influence to buy up both the Chicago PD and the RCMP. Benton let him rant, tuning out most of it, preoccupied. On the short light plane ride between Inuvik and Tuk, Fraser briefed Ray on his suspicion about Carl Johnson.

"I have nothing to go on but my memories of Carl as a boy, and intuition. I just can't see what a man of Carl's background and character would be doing volunteering for the cleanup crew. But even if he is on the level, he may be able to tell us about personalities involved."

"Yeah, yeah, Benny. It's a lead, and considering we're walking into this blind, we'll go with your instincts on it." Ray acceded. "I don't think the local boys will give us much else to do on this case. We're already going to put their noses out of joint. Might as well work the angle you've got."

"Ray, I know that you don't like being put into this situation, but these are my people, and I do feel an obligation to uncover the truth of the matter." Benton said earnestly, his intense gaze drilling into Ray.

"I get it, I'm not brushing you off. It's just that this really isn't my territory so I guess if you wanna lead, I'll follow. Up to a point. I'm not licking anything." Ray shuddered.

"Understood, Ray."

The rest of the flight passed quietly except for the sound of the plane's engines as Ray and Fraser stared out the window at the barren landscape below, each lost in different thoughts about going to the remote settlement.

There was a car waiting for them at the airport, an ancient but sturdy four-wheeler. Diefenbaker disembarked the plane and sat beside it, refusing to get in.

"Now, Dief, just get in the car." Benton crouched beside the wolf who looked away and gave a short whine.

"No, really. Nobody's going to remember. There's no reason to be embarrassed. You're a wolf after all. People expect feral behavior from a wolf. I'm sure it's all been forgotten."

Diefenbaker responded by laying down and settling his head between his paws.

"Oh, come on."

"What did he do?" Ray asked, intrigued. He'd long got over his disbelief at the sight of the grown man talking to his companion animal.

"It's really nothing." Benton said, standing up. "He needs to get over it. No-one's going to hold it against him."

"Yeah, but what'd he do?" Ray insisted.

"There was an incident. He was just following his instincts." Benton leaned over to whisper in Ray's ear. "The incident involved several items of laundry that were out drying in a woman's yard the last time that we were visiting. They went missing in suspicious circumstances and eventually we discovered that Diefenbaker was the culprit."

Ray hooted with laughter. "Diefenbaker went on a panty raid."

"Please." Ben whispered. "Don't make it worse. He's already embarrassed. It turns out that he was taking them for a bitch to have her pups on. It couldn't have been more natural."

Ray couldn't contain his mirth at the image of the wolf sneaking around with stolen undergarments in his mouth. Diefenbaker covered his ears with his paws and whined.

"Oh really. You just need to grow up!" Benton said with frustration. "Fine, stay here then. We'll be at the Mackenzie Inn. If you feel the need to slink into town under cover of darkness, you're going to have a long wait, Mister!"

Indeed, although it was already evening, the sky was still as bright as daytime as Fraser and Vecchio made their way to the MacKenzie Inn. It was too late to liaise with the operational center set up in the town's tiny city hall. After a quick dinner at the hotel's restaurant they retired for the night, but Benton lay awake for long, bright hours, contemplating how strange it was to be home again, his childhood home, after the transformative experience of life in the big city.

The last time he'd been back was on leave from his former post, which was comparatively near in geographical terms, but far enough away to feel that he'd escaped the gravitational pull of Tuk and childhood. It was certainly good to be back in familiar terrain, though, where he could understand the implications of every sight, sound and scent. He breathed the night air in deeply, grateful for its distinct lack of Chicago smog.

Ray was also unable to sleep. The midnight light was eerie. The lack of street sounds was damn near maddening. He hadn't really thought you could be distracted by the absence of noise but it put his senses on high alert. Too quiet. In spite of the way they had been dragged onto the case, his policeman's intuition was ticking away nicely, keeping him wide awake as he pondered the little they knew so far. This Arctic Defence crew, whoever they were, they were the obvious suspects. But he respected Benton's hunch. He wondered how far the Canadians had got. He wondered if they'd realize the asset a real local would be. Probably not. It was bound to be a pissing contest, especially with an American like him along for the ride. Then he wondered if the restaurant kitchen was still open, and if they could be persuaded to make a proper Chicago deep dish pie. Probably not.

"And to conclude our briefing, I'd like to welcome two officers who have joined the operation from Chicago." The operational team leader, Inspector Wheeler, in spite of Ray's comments about the local boys, was an attractive brunette in her early forties. Ray and Benton had arrived at the crowded city hall in plenty of time for the morning briefing the next day and listened to a thorough description of the ongoing search for members of Arctic Defence, who had now claimed credit for the drilling platform attack.

"I'm sure we'll all give them the warm and heartfelt welcome that they deserve for taking time away from their no doubt busy Chicago crime fighting schedules to come and share their wisdom with we mere parochial investigators."

The rest of the team turned to look at Ray and Fraser, and there was a polite golf-clap.

Benton leaned over to Ray. "I sense a little hostility, Ray. I don't think she was being sincere."

Ray rolled his eyes. "I'd say we were about as welcome here as a fart in a spacesuit."

"Very colorfully put, Ray." Benton agreed.

The briefing over, Benton and Ray edged forward to talk to the lead investigator.

"Sir, I'm Constable Benton Fraser, and this is Detective Raymond Vecchio of the Chicago PD. That was a very informative briefing."

She eyed Ray and Fraser, her eyes lingering blatantly on the mountie, weighing and measuring him.

"The detective is a dead loss. I can't stand balding men. They overcompensate. Nothing wrong with the body on that himbo Mountie, though. Or the face, for that matter. Those chiseled cheekbones and the piercing eyes. Hazel, or green?" she thought to herself, allowing a little smile.

"I'm Inspector Catherine Wheeler, as you should know. Nice of you to join us up here." She shook hand with Ray, and then with Fraser, gripping his hand a little longer than strictly necessary.

"Mmm. A real he-man grip." she thought.

"Well, sir, since we have all the information from the briefing and you seem to have all the current leads sufficiently under investigation, I was wondering if we could conduct some local interviews."

"You think you have a lead?" her eyes narrowed.

"Not exactly a lead. I thought we could get some background information. I lived in this town when I was a child, and I know of at least one of the locals who was involved in the cleanup effort."

"Oh, well." her assessment of the young constable dropped even further. Hick himbo. But still. Damned if he didn't have the most kissable looking lips.

"Yes, we do have most of the current information we've received under investigation. As you know, this is a major, high stakes operation, and I expect you'll understand that we already have quite a few resources assigned to it. You run along and interview locals, and try to stay out of the way, mmkay?" Her voice ended on a falsely sweet upward intonation.

Ray humphed, earning him a sideways glance from Fraser, and a glare from Wheeler.

"Oh, and constable, perhaps your work on this investigation would be enhanced if you'd come to my suite at the hotel after lunch for a debriefing." She allowed her eyes to issue an unmistakable invitation. At forty-three she knew her body was still toned and desirable from hours at the gym, and she knew what she wanted.

"I don't quite see the point, Sir." Fraser said, eyebrows furrowing. "I just gave you all the information I have, and I can't anticipate that I'll gather any more that's worth reporting back by..." he looked at his watch "one p.m.. That's only four hours from now. And if you meant briefing, not debriefing, then I do believe we heard all that we're going to need during your comprehensive statements this morning."

Ray was grinning as Catherine Wheeler blinked in astonishment. Could the man really be as vacuously pretty as he seemed? Could he honestly have missed the direct suggestion in her statement? Clearly his partner hadn't missed it and was amused by her surprise.

"Well. Then. That's fine. Just go and do whatever it is with the locals you want, and I'll see you at tomorrow morning's briefing. Don't screw up my investigation, toots."

Ray lost his patience as he turned on his heel to head toward the car. Over his shoulder he yelled "Yeah, you just watch your own back, toots."

In the car, Benton was silent for a minute or two, turning his uniform hat around in his hands.

"I don't think that went too well, Ray. I think you could have been a bit more diplomatic." he finally said. They were headed toward Carl Johnson's family home in the rougher part of town down near the docks.

"Me? Diplomatic? The woman practically tried to take your pants off right there."

"Ray, I understand she was a little patronizing, but-"

"But... 'why don't you come back to my place for a debriefing?'", Ray mimicked the inspector in an exaggeratedly seductive tone of voice. "Seriously, Benny, do you need an engraved invitation, or what?"

"Oh, I don't think she meant. She couldn't have been. Oh." Benton's eyes opened wide. "Oh, dear, Ray. That could be a complication."

**Author's Note: Stay tuned for the next chapter, in which the boys begin their investigation in earnest, and there's just a hint of sappiness from an old friend. Please review and let me know what you think so far!**


	3. It's Good to be Home Isn't It?

Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush.

Chapter 3 - It's Good to be Home. Isn't It?

Ray soon pulled up outside the cottage that had belonged to Carl Johnson's parents. It had taken a little longer than Benton anticipated to get there, as the Chicago cop insisted on driving even though the four-wheel drive was not his Rivera and Benton knew the area better.

The cottage was in need of a coat or two of paint and some repairs to an obviously failing roof. Benton made no move to get out of the car immediately.

"You ok there buddy?" Ray asked lightly.

"Ray, this man and I have a history, not a particularly good one."

Ray nodded understandingly.

"I get you, Benny. I've got your back, you know that? Whatever was in the past, you gotta face the future, right?"

"Right." He swung the door open.

"Dief, that means you, too." he said sternly, as the wolf sulkily climbed out of the car.

"What'd this guy do to you anyway?" Ray asked.

"I'd rather not say." Fraser replied curtly.

"Fine." Ray gestured acceptance with a wide-armed shrug. "Whatever. I got your back."

Benton walked up to the front door and, taking his hat off, rang the doorbell. There was some scuffling inside, and then an obviously pregnant young woman opened the door.

"Excuse me, Ma'am." Benton said. "I'm looking for a Mr. Carl Johnson."

He took in her dark eyes that danced with life, and the long dark hair that hung in two braids over her shoulders. A spark of recognition and pleasure dawned in him.

"Sally?" he finally exclaimed. "Sally Richards?"

It was the woman's turn to look confused for a moment.

"I go by Sarah now, but- Oh!" her face lit up into a genuine smile of pleasure. "Ben Fraser! I didn't recognize you at first, showing up in that fancy uniform. It's been too long. Well, come on in! Is that lingerie thieving wolf of yours with you?"

Diefenbaker turned his back on the house and slinked off back down to the car. So much for everyone forgetting.

"This is my partner, Detective Raymond Vecchio, of the Chicago PD", Benton said almost distractedly as he entered the cottage. After the first thrill of recognizing his old schoolmate had passed, he was struck with the sudden realization that if she were living in Carl Johnson's house, she had probably married him and was carrying his child. The thought filled him with a palpable anxiety and unhappiness.

Benton looked around the front room of the small cottage. It was cluttered, dusty and untidy, and didn't at all accord with the sight of the happy woman who had greeted them at the door. He hardly dared hope that he was wrong about her having married Carl Johnson. As a boy, Carl had been wild and uncaring, lashing out to hurt those around him. Sally, or Sarah, had been the opposite, gentle, nurturing and always eager to cheer up everyone she met. Still, Fraser thought as Vecchio and Sarah acquainted themselves, she looked well enough. Maybe Carl had changed.

He walked over to the fireplace where a framed picture had caught his eye. Even from a distance it was distinctive as a wedding photo with a bride in a gigantic white dress. He picked it up and stared. That was Carl Johnson, looking mean and menacing even in his morning suit. But that wasn't Sarah. He almost dropped the photo.

"Oh, didn't Susan make a pretty bride? Sarah said, as she noticed Benton examining the picture.

"So you're not... You didn't..." Benton was flustered. Susan was Sarah's sister, younger by a year.

Sarah burst out laughing.

"Oh, you thought that because I answered to the door, barefoot and pregnant, I was married to Carl?" She couldn't contain her contagious laughter, and Fraser broke into a smile of unconcealed relief.

"Oh, goodness no. Carl. No." she laughed. "Give me credit for better taste than that." She winked. "I'm just housesitting. Do you remember Joseph Little? He swept me off my feet right after you were last in town."

"Oh, good. I mean..." Benton fumbled to get himself out of the awkward situation.

Sarah patted him on the arm. "Come into the kitchen and we'll have a nice cup of tea and you and your friend can tell me what you want with Carl."

Ray and Fraser were just sitting down at the table in the sunlit kitchen of the cottage while Sarah put the kettle on, when a small child toddled into the room. Sarah turned around and exclaimed.

"Benton!"

Fraser looked up, startled. "Yes?"

"Not you!" Sarah said as she scooped the toddler off the floor. "This one. He's a regular escape artist! I left him in his crib. Here, hold him while I finish getting the tea on."

She plopped the child into Fraser's arms.

Ray scratched his head.

"You named the kid Benton?" he asked.

Sarah turned around from scooping tea into a teapot.

"Yes, this one here," she gestured at the older Benton who was now making the puffin face, curling his upper lip over his lower lip and puffing out his cheeks at the child, "was my very first crush. And Joseph was in school with us too. We both felt that we'd be happy if we could raise a boy with as much courage and heart as Ben. We're very proud of the way Ben followed his father's footsteps into the Mounties. He's grown up to be a real credit to Tuk."

Benton Fraser was red from the top of his brown uniform jacket to the tips of his dark hair. The blush had started when she mentioned the childhood crush and only continued to deepen as she spoke. Joseph and Sarah were good people and it meant something to hear that somebody back home thought well of him.

"Do you, ah, have any other children?" he asked, taking one hand from supporting the child to loosen his collar.

"One older boy, Joseph after his father, and this one on the way." Sarah patted her belly and looked the picture of contentedness.

She set cups of tea and a plate of cookies on the table and sat down, taking young Benton from Fraser's arms.

"So, what brings you from the excitement of the big city?" she asked. "We heard you were doing well down there."

Ray answered.

"Some big shot thinks it'd be a good idea for us to be up here looking into that drilling platform incident. " he said. "So, here we are."

Sarah nodded. "Okay," she said, slightly more hesitantly, "So what brings you poking around looking for Carl Johnson of all people?"

Benton ran his hand through his hair.

"Ah. Well, I happened to see him in a picture of the cleanup workers, and I though that since we were already acquainted, it might be a good place to start asking questions about what he might have seen." He dissembled tactfully. Carl was her brother in law after all.

"You mean, you saw a picture of notorious deadbeat Carl Johnson apparently skulking around the scene of a very major crime and you wanted to come by and find out what the heck he was up to." Sarah offered in rejoinder.

Ray snorted with amusement. "Benny, she's too sharp for you."

Fraser bit his lower lip, assessed the situation, and nodded.

"Yes, something like that." he said. "Do you happen to know where we might find Carl?"

Sarah stood up, holding little Benton close, rocking him against her shoulder. She turned to look out the window, her back to Ray and Fraser.

"I wish I did." she said, her voice sounding low. "I got a call from Susan, asking me to come by and take care of the dogs and empty the fridge and so on. She said they had to take off and she couldn't say why. That bastard hits her, but she won't leave, she defends him. But I'm afraid, Ben. I'm afraid she's in real deep trouble this time."

Benton stood up and put a hand on her shoulder.

"We'll do everything we can to find Susan, I promise." he said. "Would it be all right if we looked around? We might find something informative."

Sarah nodded. "Go right ahead. Carl would be mad as hell, but I really don't care what Carl wants, I just want my sister back safe."

Fraser and Vecchio made a methodical search of the house, Sarah watching them with worried eyes. On the top of a bureau covered with papers, Fraser found a scrap reading "ID. 14 Water Street." He showed it to Sarah.

"This looks like it was written recently. Does it mean anything to you?"

"That's an address in Inuvik." she said, reading the paper. "Not a real good part of town. I don't know about ID though."

"Forged papers, maybe." Ray chimed in. "We'll check it out."

Fraser sifted through the rest of the papers on the desk, checking each one carefully. Many of them were long overdue bills, but under a stack of crumpled receipts, he found one with the last Thursday's date scrawled on it, and another address in Inuvik.

"Something else, maybe." he said, handing it to Ray. "It looks as if we'll be taking a trip."

Sarah said, "It's funny, I remember now, Mike from the airport did mention that in the last few months Carl's been taking a lot of trips to Inuvik. He said sometimes he's there and back in a couple of hours, sometimes a couple of days. Oh, and a couple of times he's been over to Edmonton, which has to cost a fortune!"

She grinned slyly at Ray's bemused expression. "Mike's kids go to school with little Joseph. Trust me, it's so dull around here that we'll gossip about anything."

"Did Susan say anything to you about that?" Ray asked. "Was it usual for Carl to be on the move so much?"

"She didn't, really. I mean, I didn't like to ask. Carl's been in and out of work for a year, kept getting fired for his lousy attitude. I just figured he'd found some work or something."

Benton asked, "So he's been in a lot of different jobs. Were many of them around the oil fields?"

"A few manual labor jobs, yeah, I'd think. Also, the occasional freight run to drilling platforms, that sort of thing."

"So he'd know lots of men who did work in the oil industry."

"Well, we all do, but, sure."

"Were any of these trips around the time of the other sabotage incidents?" Ray asked.

"I couldn't say, I'm afraid. The sabotages didn't make the news much until about the fourth time it happened, so I have no real idea if the dates would match."

Benton and Ray looked at each other thoughtfully.

"Thanks," said Ray to Sarah. "You've been a lot of help."

Sarah saw them out.

"Now, you come by for dinner later. I promise we won't be serving seal. Ben, you still remember how to get to my parents' house, right? They'd love to see you. The boys and I live next door, as Joseph is on the road so much in his line of work."

Ray raised an eyebrow, and Sarah laughed.

"Oh yes, in all the gloom and doom I didn't catch you boys up on everything, but we can talk over dinner. I'd run by the hotel and pick up your bags, too, if I were you. My parents aren't likely to let you stay in a hotel while we have room to spare."

Ray shook his head as they walked to the car where Diefenbaker was waiting. "She's a force of nature." he said. Benton smiled his agreement. Sarah really hadn't changed, even if Tuk had grown more industrial and less of a friendly, small town.

**Author's note: I just love the puffin face. As always, please let me know what you thought! Next chapter, Ray gets to show off his mad crimefighting skillz.**


	4. The Art of Asking Polite Questions

Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush.

Chapter 4 - The Art of Asking Polite Questions

Ray was not happy to be cramped back into a light plane for the three quarters of an hour it took to get from Tuktoyaktuk to Inuvik. He felt a sudden sense of the isolation that Fraser had grown up with. There weren't many places he knew of that were so cut off from the rest of the world. In his home neighborhood, of course everyone knew Ray Vecchio, knew his mother and sisters, remembered him as a little boy, the whole drill. But in Chicago, go a few blocks away from home and you could be an anonymous face in an anonymous city. It was crazy that the wide open spaces out here could feel so claustrophobic. He couldn't imagine squeezing into a prop plane every time he wanted a change of scenery.

On Fraser's part, he was surprised to find that his heart felt lighter as soon as they lifted off the ground. Granted, Inuvik was not much more than a small town itself, but it seemed that being back where he'd spent his childhood years was now an oppressive experience. They had been such a mix of good and bad- the love of learning his grandparents instilled in him, the great times and friendships of the band of children roaming the wilds when school was out, balanced out by the years of pain of having neither parent to hold him, love him, tell him he was special.

Then there was the part where the place was too small to get away from someone like Carl. Like it or not, in a village you had to learn to rub along with everyone, whether they seemed to hold homicidal urges toward you or not. It'd certainly built his character to have to stand up to the bully with courage and a few boxing lessons, but it was rather satisfying to know that this time he was taking on the bully with the full force of Canadian law, plus a sturdy representative of American law, on his side. His initial feeling of apprehension about the case had been almost pushed aside by a desire to see Carl face real justice. Now they were both adults and no-one was going to excuse Carl's behavior with "Boys will be boys!"

It was not hard to find 'the not really good part' of Inuvik. Ray and Benton took a cab from the airport to the center of town and then walked the rest of the way. The proximity to the river made it even easier to locate 14 Water St. It was a small building of mostly abandoned offices and one store front with a dirty plate glass window that looked out onto the narrow street which was full of dumpsters and recycling bins for the light industrial buildings that appeared to make up the rest of the street.

"Pawn shop." Ray said, peering in the window. "Figures."

He pushed the door open and they went in. There was a scruffy looking gray haired man of a medium, but unfit, build behind the counter. He looked up and then looked thoroughly alarmed at the sight of Benton's uniform.

"Officer. Heheh. What can I do for you? Heheh." he punctuated his sentences with an unpleasantly phlegmy sounding nervous laugh.

Benton walked over to the counter and leaned on it, the full force of his gaze resting on the shopkeeper.

"As a matter of fact, I believe you can help me quite a bit. Have you seen this man?"

He pulled out the wedding photo of Carl, which was the best photo Sarah could lend him.

The man made a big show of examining it.

"What'd he do, skip out on the honeymoon? Heheheh." he said.

Ray rolled his eyes.

"Come on, buddy. You sell this guy some kind of ID? Passport maybe?"

The shopkeeper's expression of wounded innocence was priceless, if not in the slightest bit convincing.

"What are you suggesting, heheh, I'm some kind of criminal? Heheh. I run an honest business here. Honest. Heheh."

Ray stepped around behind the counter and grabbed the man's shirt lapels in one hand.

"Listen, we don't have time to mess around. You tell us what we want to know, or you're in more trouble than you could possibly imagine. Got it?"

"Ray." Fraser said calmly. "This is Canada. We don't threaten suspects."

Ray flashed his partner a wicked grin. "Oh, right, this is Canada. Not even my jurisdiction. Guess I can do what I want and not get heat for it." He shook the man by the lapels.

"See, my partner here wants us to take you down to the precinct or whatever you call it here for a nice long chat. Do they get lawyers here Benny? Well, never-mind, because you're not just dealing with my partner."

The man squeaked. "I don't know anything. Heheh. Honest."

Fraser said "Ray, I would certainly not advise you to hit that man. Your fighting proficiency would no doubt cause undue physical damage. Possibly irreparable harm."

"Are you saying I'm gonna mess him up, Benny, is that what you're saying?" Ray demanded.

"Well, actually, Ray, I'm saying that I think you probably shouldn't mess him up."

The man shuddered, wriggling in Ray's grip. His eyes darted back and forth between the two officers of the law. The American was crazy, but his partner didn't seem to be doing anything about it except talking.

"Aren't you going to make him stop? Heheh. Make him stop. This ain't right, heheh." he pleaded to Fraser.

Fraser looked as if he were assessing the situation. "Why, no. I mean, I don't think that my partner should assault you, but I do trust him to make the right decision on his own."

Ray snarled in the man's face.

"All right, all right! Heheh." he said. "I'll tell you, heheh, about this guy."

Ray relaxed his grip. "Make it snappy."

"OK, so this guy comes in, I make him two passports, one for him, one for a lady. I ask if he's going somewhere, he tells me to mind my own business. Snappy enough? Heheh."

Benton noticed that the nervous laughter was mostly gone when the man finally answered the question. He wondered about that. It seemed like his answer might have been a little rehearsed. But Ray's games aside, they didn't have many resources to put this man under the bright lights and find out for sure if he was lying or spinning the truth. At least they had a real reason now to believe that Carl was involved in some kind of wrong-doing.

As he opened his mouth to ask one last question, the door to the shop swung open. Benton and Ray turned toward the door, but at the sight of Benton's uniform the new arrival had apparently turned tail and ran. Ray darted out from around the counter and took off after him. Benton stopped long enough to say "Thank you, kindly!" to the store owner before joining the pursuit.

The stranger who had run from the store was fast. Benton got a good look at the back of him, a tall, athletically built man in a grey suit, good shoes, and something that stood out among the tailoring, an elasticized ankle brace flashing from under the right leg of his trousers. Benton was catching up to Ray, who was getting a little breathless, when the man turned for long enough to shove two recycling bins over, not stopping to look as they toppled down on Ray.

Fraser pulled up short to help Ray out from under the bins.

"Are you all right?" he said, extending a hand to the fallen detective. Ray got to his feet with a look of disgust on his face.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. But this suit is ruined. You know how much this thing cost?"

The suit was covered in grime from the street, and there was a tear in the shirt.

"Perhaps that wasn't the best choice of attire for chasing criminals in the far North West, Ray." Benton suggested as they walked back toward the center of town.

"What? You're still wearing your uniform, which, I might add, appears to be spotless. I don't know how you do that. So don't go lecturing me about appropriate clothes." Ray replied.

"You may have a point, Ray." Benton said, "this operation does seem like it'd work better were we in plain clothes. We can stop at the general store before we leave town."

Ray wrinkled his nose at the thought of wearing clothes bought at a general store but didn't argue.

They soon arrived at their second destination, the address from the paper dated the previous week. It turned out to be a two story office building housing four offices, and looked much more prosperous than the building on Water St.

The men canvassed all four of the offices. Two were rival dentists' offices, and no-one in either of them admitted having seen Carl, although inevitably when Benton showed the photo someone had to quip "What, did he leave her at the altar?" with occasional riffs on the importance of the Mounties getting their man.

The last two suites were more promising. The first of them belonged to a local politician, William Campbell. The anteroom was covered in posters declaiming the importance of protecting Arctic wilderness areas. Ray nudged Benton.

"Could have links to AD." he said.

"Possibly." Benton replied.

The receptionist appeared genuinely not to have seen Carl before. Campbell, an excitable looking redheaded man, said that he had not, but demanded to know why they were asking, and was not at all happy with Fraser's reply.

"I won't have this sort of police harassment!" he said. "Get out, now! I run a clean campaign and my political enemies would love to see me linked to eco-terrorists." He was ushering them toward the door.

Fraser stood inside the door.

"I'm sorry that you think this is harassment." he said. "We are asking the same questions of everyone in the building. It's just a routine investigation."

Campbell shook his head. "I don't know who's pay-rolling you, but I won't be slurred like this. I'll be speaking to your superior officer immediately, you hear me!"

He took a step toward Fraser threateningly.

"I'm sure my superior officer will be glad to hear whatever you have to say." Fraser said. "But I still need-"

"You need to get out!" Campbell said loudly. "Get our before I throw you out."

Ray bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, flexing his fingers. Not that he'd ever heard much about the fighting prowess of the Common Canadian Politician, but it could still be fun.

"Fine." Fraser said. "We're not here to cause any sort of incident, sir." He held his hand up between Ray and Campbell, as if to forestall hasty action on either side. "But we will return if we need further answers."

Leaving the office, Ray and Benton shared a long look. Campbell was certainly acting like a man with something to hide. Either that, or a man at the end of his rope.

The last suite belonged to an engineering firm, the sign on the door read "Nesbitt Loggie Curtis Engineering- NW Territories Division." The outer room was smaller and more cramped than that of the dentists or Campbell, but through an open door Ray and Fraser could see drafting tables and computers with people hard at work.

Benton looked around, seeing shelves decorated with trophies that appeared to be mostly for fishing tournaments and a low table with a couple of chairs for clients to wait in. The table was scattered with magazines. Most of them were industry related, but the corner of the cover of one, sticking out under the others, caught his eye. He was about to take a look at it when the receptionist stood up to greet them.

"Gentlemen. Did you have an appointment to see someone?" she said.

"I'm afraid not." Fraser said. "We're here on police business. I'm Constable Benton Fraser of the RCMP, and this is my partner, Detective Raymond Vecchio, of the Chicago PD. I hope it won't inconvenience you if we ask a few questions." he smiled.

"Oh. Well." The receptionist appeared a little flustered. "My name is Rowan. Was there someone specifically you needed to talk to?"

Benton shook his head. "No, or rather, that is, we need to speak to everyone, please."

"Well, everyone here means the five of us." Rowan indicated the people in the back office. "We're not a big division, most of the work gets done back in Edmonton, but we keep things going on this end. Of course, it would be six, but Mr. Curtis, that would be the nephew of the Curtis in the name, is on a site inspection today."

Rowan introduced Fraser and Vecchio to the rest of the engineering staff. The two officers borrowed the small conference room at the back of the suite to interview each separately. Ray thought he detected uneasiness in the senior engineer, but the answer to the questions about Carl was the same from each. None of them recognized the man in the photo.

Leaving the building, Ray sighed with frustration. "Campbell is the best bet, but how're we supposed to put a bug up his ass without causing an international fracas? And I dunno, none of the nerds at Nesbitt Loggie Curtis were lying, far as I could see."

"I concur, Ray." Fraser said, looking a little frustrated himself. "There were things that didn't quite add up right, and I would very much like to speak to Mr Curtis, but no one who was in that office today has seen Carl."

**Author's Note: Hmm. That's a tricky one all right! Next up, a further encounter with the lovely Inspector Wheeler, and then ...peril? Please let me know what you think of the story so far!**


	5. Who's Got the Button?

Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush.

Chapter Five - Who's Got the Button?

After an errand at the local library and a trip to the general store for clothes, Ray and Fraser were soon back on the small plane to Tuktoyaktuk. Back in Tuk, Ray and Benton stopped off at the hotel to change into their newly purchased jeans, boots and flannels. Ray knocked on Benton's door.

"Do I look like a local now?" he asked, doing a little twirl in Benton's room.

Benton was suppressing a laugh. "Ray. You're wearing twenty Canadian dollars worth of flannel and denim as if it were a six thousand dollar Armani suit. You look ridiculous."

Ray looked offended. "Oh, like you don't have to have every lanyard and button on your uniform just exactly right!" he said. He had to admit, though, that Benton was wearing his new green flannel shirt over a t-shirt and jeans with a lot more casual élan than Ray was managing.

Ray unbuttoned the top button of the shirt. "Better?" He wore the shirt with an air of martyrdom, as if the only way he'd be comfortable in plaid was if Giorgio Armani himself sent a line of tartan formal wear down the runway. It didn't help that Benton's eagle eye at the Inuvik general store had spotted the more tasteful dark green shirt first, leaving Ray in a rather terrifying melange of oranges and reds.

"Roll up your sleeves." Benton said, earning him a pained look from Ray as he complied, making crisp folds in the fabric. He looked at the tan rawhide workboots he'd been forced into. There was no way you'd get a mirror shine on those. He sighed deeply. This was not the 'Raymond Vecchio: Ladies Man and All Round Tough Cop' look he was accustomed to.

"Now you could pass as a local. An unusually clean local, but it's a start." Benton said.

They grabbed their bags and went down to the car. Ray drove the short distance to the City Hall.

"I'll wait here if you want to handle your debriefing on your own." He smirked to Fraser.

"Now, was it necessary to mention debriefing?" Benton huffed as he climbed out of the car. Diefenbaker was in the back seat, mouth wide open in what could be a yawn or a laugh. "And I don't see what you find so funny." Benton added in an aside to the wolf as he closed the car door. Still, the Inspector's proposition did add a wrinkle to things. He would have to be on guard.

He found Inspector Wheeler in her commandeered office. He knocked on the door. "Sir, I have information to report."

The sight of the broad-shouldered constable in form-fitting jeans and a flannel shirt that enhanced the color of his eyes took Inspector Wheeler's breath away.

"Just a moment." She said, turning her back on him. She tugged the top and second button of her blouse undone, inadvertently ripping the second button loose. She turned around, concealing the button under the blotter on the desk.

"Constable Fraser. Have a seat." she said. "Turn up anything interesting among the locals?" She leaned forward, allowing him an extensive view of cleavage. Benton kept his eyes level with hers determinedly.

"Well, actually, I think I might have." he said. "I have been trying to track down a man named Carl Johnson. I haven't been able to find him but I have ascertained that he may have purchased a forged passport in Inuvik."

Wheeler's eyebrows raised. "That sounds awfully sophisticated for a backwoods small-timer. Do you have evidence of his involvement in the explosion?"

"Not exactly, Sir." Fraser said. "It's partially a hunch, but I have been able to connect him to an office building in Inuvik where he may have met with someone involved in the plan. There are two possible connections. One is a Mr. William Campbell."

At this Wheeler sat up straight. "Oh, that was you who he called to yell about?" she said. "I should have known. Oh well, never mind." She didn't want to scare the dreamy, if daft, constable off entirely, and it would be easy enough to explain to Campbell that the officer he spoke to was clearly an imbecile, not acting under the auspices of her operation.

Benton was discouraged. "Never mind? I'm sorry he was upset that we were asking questions, but I do think he's one of the leads we should pursue."

Wheeler shook her head. "Look, if you think you can track down this Carl guy, go ahead. I guess he may have headed for the border, if he got a fake passport. But stay away from the big boys, OK?" she said in her now familiar overly-sweet tone of voice.

"Understood." Fraser said, feeling chagrin. He stood.

"Oh, if you have any more information you'd like to share, the offer to meet privately stands for this evening." Catherine Wheeler said, batting her lashes at him.

"No, that was all I think." Fraser said, his face impassive. He turned as if to walk out and then turned back as though he'd forgotten something.

"Oh. One thing." He leaned in over her intimately. Her pulse started to race as his piercing eyes gazed into hers as if reading her soul.

"Yes?" she breathed, the word emerging as barely more than a sigh. He was so intense, his lips parted slightly, that look of complete attention and concentration on his face. She waited for him to speak, move, break the spell.

"Your blouse appears to have lost a button." he whispered. "Here, I have a safety pin." He handed her the pin and then in a fluid motion saluted and turned to walk out the door, leaving the astonished Wheeler staring after him, unable to decide if he was incredibly oblivious, or incredibly impertinent.

From the City Hall, Ray drove them to the Richards' home where Sarah had invited them to dinner. Sarah met them all at the door and invited them in. Diefenbaker bounded into the house at the prospect of a home cooked meal.

Sarah introduced everyone to Ray. "Ray, this is my Dad, you can call him Rob. This is Mom," Sarah's mother welcomed Ray with a hug matching the one she'd given Benton. "Call me Cindy!" she told them. The resemblance between Sarah and her mother was marked, with Cindy showing more grey hairs and laugh lines, but the same dark eyes sparkling in her face. Next was a sturdy small boy, Joseph, the oldest of Sarah's children. "And of course you met little Benton. He's down for the night already, which avoids confusion, eh, Benton?" she grinned and elbowed Fraser familiarly in the ribs.

"So the scourge of the north is back in town, eh?" Rob said, bending down to ruffle the fur on Dief's head. "Stay away from the clothesline this time, buster." he said in mock warning. Dief whined and looked at the floor, making everyone laugh, which broke any ice left in the gathering.

Dinner was excellent, in spite of Sarah's joke about seal. The main dish was locally caught salmon, caught by Rob the day before, and there were side vegetables flown in from warmer climes. Benton insisted on enlisting Ray to help shell peas while he peeled potatoes deftly, unwilling to let Sarah and Cindy do all the work in the kitchen.

The talk at the dinner table was light, mostly catching up on each other's lives, Benton and Ray telling stories about life in Chicago and Sarah talking about the joys of being married to a long-haul trucker who had to go south for work in the summer. When little Joseph was put to bed and Benton, with Ray's help, had washed and dried every single dish, the conversation finally turned to the reason that Ray and Fraser were in town.

"I think we made some progress today." Benton said.

Rob's gentle, good humored face was transformed by a look of keen intelligence in his eyes, his mouth set in a taut line as he and Cindy listened, eager for news that might lead to getting their daughter Susan back.

Benton stood up and paced as he continued talking in a thoughtful tone. "We found out that Carl had forged passports made for them. Now, it's possible that he's already headed south, but there are some links up here that I need to follow up. I called Ray's Lieutenant from the hotel and asked him to check with border control and we'll fax a picture of Carl over in the morning. I just have a feeling that he's not gone that far yet."

Ray nodded. "It was a little too easy to get the information about the passports. My guess is that's a last resort and a red herring to keep anyone looking for him busy."

Rob wrinkled his brow. "So you think he hasn't gone south but you don't know where he could be. Did you find any other leads?"

Ray told them about William Campbell's suspicious behavior, his voice rising with excitement as he described the encounter. Cindy and Rob clucked their tongues in disapproval.

"He's a bit of a stirrer." Rob said. "I don't know how he thinks people up here are supposed to live if he closes down all the jobs to make a wilderness."

Cindy agreed. "But I never thought he'd do anything that plain evil." she added.

Benton said "We don't know that it was Williams. There was another office in the building that Carl had an appointment at. It was an engineering firm called 'Nesbitt Loggie Curtis'."

Sarah, Rob and Cindy nodded their recognition of the name.

"While we were in Inuvik I went to the library and looked through the local newspaper's database and found reports of several contracts on which they were seen to have bid very low, and speculation about how they could support those bids. But there was nothing going back further than '87, and work on the platform began in '85." Puzzlement and frustration clouded his features.

"Well, there wouldn't be, would there?" Sarah piped up. "'Nesbitt Loggie Curtis' is a new name, but it's the same company- they used to be Loggie Enterprises. I know they worked on a lot of drilling platforms and other structures around here though I can't say for sure if they worked on the one that got blown up. There were a lot of rumors about why they reincorporated with a new name, anyway!"

Ray was on his feet by the end of the sentence. "That's brilliant, Sarah!" Ray said. "I think we need to go and make a few calls, shake a few trees."

Rob stood up and looked at Benton with almost paternal disapproval.

"Now, young Ben, I don't know how it is with the city folks down in the States, but around here we don't interrupt people at their dinners. I know you're keen to solve this case, and you can't imagine how much I want you to find our Susan, but I think it will have to wait until morning."

Ray made an inarticulate cluck of frustration. Benton sat down, frowning slightly.

"He's right, Ray. People won't be willing to talk to us at this time of night, and we'll need cooperation to get information. We can make a fresh start in the morning."

Ray protested, but Rob would brook no argument, and Ray could see that Benton was getting uneasy at his contention with their host. He grudgingly gave in. "But we get a start on the phone calls first thing in the morning, no question!" he said.

After Ray and Benton were shown to the spare room, Benton said "If Susan is still alive and still with Carl, I doubt that Carl will have any more reason to hurt her tonight than he already has."

Ray had to agree.

"Sure, that makes sense, Frase, but I got a strange feeling about Rob. I mean, if my daughter, if I had a daughter, were missing, I don't think I'd hold off the best shot at finding her just for the sake of being polite."

"It's different up here, Ray." Benton said. "It's a slower pace. We still don't have a good idea of where Susan might be and the NLC lead is rather tenuous. Getting people out of bed to ask questions about construction and engineering may do more damage than good."

In the back of his mind, something was telling him to be careful, that Ray had a point. It tickled at him, but he couldn't bring himself to distrust the motives of Rob, whom he'd known since his childhood. Ray's instincts were fine, but, Benton reassured himself, they were cynical city instincts. People were different up here.

It had been a long day since the briefing that morning. The next day promised a heavy load of work. The spare room had a single bed and a couch too short for either man to stretch out on. Fraser had spread his blanket on the floor before Ray could finish saying "toss you for the bed." Although the night was still unnaturally light and silent, it was a mere half hour of staring at the ceiling before Ray found his eyes closing of their own accord. Benton was asleep even sooner, falling back into childhood rhythms of living easily, Diefenbaker curled up beside him.

----

Fraser was woken in the bright pre-dawn by a noise outside the house. He looked out the window and saw a shadowy figure lurking under some trees in the back yard. Silently, he dressed. Maybe it was nothing to do with the case, but his instinct said that it was important to find out. Diefenbaker stirred but decided to stay where he was warm and comfortable. Fraser crept out without waking Ray and slipped out the back door. Approaching the figure he was relieved to see that it was only Rob. He was just about to greet the man cheerfully when Rob stepped aside.

"Sorry." Rob said, sounding as if he really meant it. Standing behind him in deeper shadow from the trees was the massive form of Carl Johnson, brandishing a handgun. Fraser froze.

"Turn around, you nosy son of a bitch." Carl said. Fraser obeyed, having little choice at that close range to the gun. He only had time to think "Ray was right." before he felt a sharp pain as the gun came down at the base of his skull, then everything went dark.

**Author's Note: Ack! But of course, Ray will be right along to sort things out. Maybe? Stick around for Chapter 6, but hold on tight, the ride gets a little rough from here on out.**

As always reviews are much appreciated :)


	6. Carl's Bad

Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush.

Warning: This chapter contains violence.

Chapter 6 - Carl's Bad

The sun was just over the horizon when Ray woke to find Fraser and Diefenbaker already gone from the room. He dressed at a leisurely pace and wandered into the kitchen to locate coffee. Rob was at the table.

"Morning." Rob said. "Help yourself." He gestured to a pot of coffee and an empty mug on the table. "Looks like Ben decided to get started without you. One of the boys he was in school with is a draftsman so he was going to walk over and ask a few questions about the local engineering firms. Told me to tell you to take it easy."

Ray was startled. "What? That's not like Frase. Why didn't he wake me up?" He poured himself a cup of the dark elixir.

Rob looked embarrassed. "Don't take this the wrong way, but not everyone in Tuk is really going to open up with a big city cop trailing after Ben."

Ray looked down at his coffee, unwilling to let Rob see that he was hurt. Sure, this was Benton's territory, but the mountie could at least have waited to tell him himself.

"So... he just took off? Without bothering to talk to me?"

Rob nodded.

"Something must be up." Ray said decisively. He couldn't imagine Benton ditching him like that.

Rob coughed, and then spoke again, his voice now shaky with tension.

"Well, actually. It's nothing personal, but I asked him not to take you along today."

"What?!" Ray exploded, slamming his coffee mug down.

"You have to understand, Susan is my daughter. If anything happened to her, well, I- I'm not kidding about people not talking to Ben if you're with him. I mean, over in the City yesterday might have been okay," he said, referring to Inuvik, "but folks around here are already kind of upset about having a bunch of outsiders poking around their business."

"Well, that's just great!" Ray said. He wasn't happy, but he could make allowances for a man scared for his daughter's life. Thinking of what Sarah had said about local gossip, he could easily believe that the townspeople had already worked themselves up to resent the cop from the states.

Maybe it was smart of Fraser to handle things on his own. Maybe. Although in all the time Fraser had been in Chicago, Ray hadn't frozen him out just because the mountie didn't know how things worked there. One day back in his home town, and suddenly Frase was too good to have Ray tagging along? All this business about how things were different up here was fine, but police work was police work. Unless things were different between him and Fraser up here too.

"He couldn't be bothered telling me this himself?" Ray still found that weird, not just annoying, but really not like his partner to go off without even talking to him.

"Oh, he was going to." Rob said. "But, well, we get up early around here, and Cindy was adamant that we shouldn't wake you up just to tell you that you could sleep in anyway." Rob said with a strained sounding chuckle. "She's the boss! Thought you could use the sleep after all the travel and running around."

"Great. I'm more use asleep than awake apparently. And what am I supposed to do with myself now?" Ray asked resentfully.

"You're welcome to stick around here. We have cable, I'm sure there's some baseball on." Rob said. "Cindy is at the school as a teacher's aide today, but I'm going to be puttering about. No trouble."

There was a hard glimmer in Ray's eyes. Wonderful. He was supposed to hang around with one of Frase's former-almost-girlfriend's fathers while being cut out of the action. But where else to go? A thought struck him.

"Look, I dunno, I might go out. Do you know Mark Smithbauer?"

Rob's expression lightened and his voice lost a little of its nervous edge. "Oh, everyone knows Mark. Funny to think of him coming back to town with his tail between his legs, after being such a big shot sports star, but he's a decent boy."

"If you give me his address I might pay him a call. When Fraser comes back you can tell him where I am. If he cares." Ray said.

Ray had come to get along quite well with the disgraced hockey player, in spite of Mark's original spoiled asshole impersonation. It might be fun to see him again, it sure beat sitting around. To hell with it, he thought, he'd never wanted to be sent on this case anyway, right?

----

Elsewhere, a short time after Ray arrived at Mark Smithbauer's house, Benton came around to find himself in a dark space, hands tied securely behind him. His head ached bitterly and he felt an overwhelming nausea. He had to assume he was concussed. Benton tried the ropes and found he couldn't loosen them at all. He listened. Water. He was on a boat. All he could hope was that Carl hadn't managed to round up Ray too.

Soon there were footsteps. A hatch above him opened, and he saw Carl's face. The boy he had known hadn't changed much in the intervening years, only become an exaggerated version of the bully he'd been - larger, and if it was possible, angrier. Fraser wasn't scared, but he was mad at himself. He should have listened to Ray. It was potentially terminal hubris to dismiss his partner's instinct for trouble, and now instead of going after Carl and the organization Carl worked for, here he was right where Carl wanted him.

"Up you come," the big man said, waving the gun in Benton's direction again.

Benton got to his feet, feeling dizzy, and managed to crawl and climb his way from the hold onto the deck of the boat, which seemed to be a motor yacht of moderate size. Carl herded him into the glassed in upper deck, which was up a few steps from the main cabin of the boat. The deck had a table and four low bar stools screwed to the floor. Carl stood behind Benton with the gun pressed against the mountie's back and grabbed Benton's left hand roughly. Benton felt his little finger being bent far back and then the sickening pain and the sound of it snapping.

"That's what happens if you don't behave nice." Carl said, sounding pleased with himself. Benton muffled a gasp and did not reply.

"Now, I'm going to untie your hands from in back, and tie them in front." He did this mostly with one hand, the gun in his other hand at all times. It was quite a feat of dexterity, and several times Benton thought of trying to fight while Carl was fiddling with the ropes, only to have Carl bring the gun up in his face each time. Carl left some slack between Benton's wrists, then pushed him down to sit on one of the stools, hands resting on the table.

A tall man appeared at the cabin door. Benton thought rapidly. He was pretty sure he knew who it was.

"All secure, Carl?" the man enquired.

"Right where we want him." Carl replied. "I'll have how much he knows and who he told out of him in no time." He gestured with the gun toward Benton's finger, which was already swelling and purple. The tall man shuddered in distaste.

"You see, it will be much more pleasant if you just tell us what you know." he addressed Fraser.

It was a gamble, but Fraser had to take it. "Well, Mr. Curtis," he ventured a guess, "I'd have to know what good that's going to do me."

The tall man looked shocked. "Carl, find out how he knows my name. Do whatever you have to. I don't want to know." He turned and left the cabin.

Carl lit a cigarette and puffed on it. Sunlight gleamed on the gun on the table next to Carl, just out of Fraser's reach.

"Now, Curtis thinks you'll squeal right away because he's a total wimp and he'd break down in no time, but Ben, you and I know better'n that, right?"

He leaned across the table, gripping Benton's left hand again, this time the ring finger.

"I reckon I won't believe a word you say unless you're practically begging to talk." He slowly, almost lovingly, snapped the second finger. Benton bit his lip. Fingers heal, he reminded himself.

"Oh, I'll talk." he said through gritted teeth. "Because your friend will want to know how little chance he has of getting away with this." He reasoned that spinning a fabrication about having put all the pieces together and reported to Inspector Wheeler might at least buy him time. That his guess about Curtis's identity had been right was key to understanding the information that he'd picked up yesterday.

Carl didn't look happy with Benton's easy acquiescence, but he knew that Curtis would want the information as soon as possible.

"Fine. Say what you have to say." He took another deep drag on his cigarette, blowing the smoke across the table into Benton's face.

Benton coughed, then took a deep breath. He hoped his conjecture would hit close to the mark.

"My partner and I had a run-in with Mr. Curtis, then unknown to us, in an alleyway in Inuvik, when he was supposedly out of the office on a site inspection. I noticed at the time that he was wearing an athletic brace, and he had a good running stride even in a business suit. Later, at the NLC offices, I saw a copy of Runner's World Magazine, which has a distinctive cover font, sticking out from under some industry journals on the reception area table. It seemed possible the two things were connected."

Carl was staring at him dull eyed. "Go on." he said. Benton couldn't read much from Carl's expression, but so far nothing he'd said was too speculative.

"I did some research at the library, and I figured out how NLC was able to bid so low on all the contracts they won. There was some speculation in the newspaper files about the quality of materials on one or two projects. NLC, then known as Loggie Enterprises, bid low on the contract for the platform that got destroyed. Then they used lower quality materials than their documents specified.

"But they must have found, on an inspection visit, that the materials were failing far more rapidly than they expected. Thus the minor sabotages on other platforms to obscure the trail, and then the big explosion. They needed to cover up the massive embezzlement of the funds supposedly paid for top quality materials." Benton talked with a lot more confidence than he felt. It sounded pretty good, and it fit with everything they'd found out so far, but was it the right answer?

Curtis was back in the doorway, unable to contain his curiosity about what the mountie knew. "My god!" he said. "Who have you told?"

Benton mustered a self-satisfied smile in spite of his throbbing head and painful hand. "Why, of course as soon as I had this information I put in a report to my superior officer, Inspector Wheeler, and sent a copy to Lieutenant Welsh of the Chicago PD. When they become aware that I'm missing, they'll know exactly who to look for, if they aren't already looking for you, Mr. Curtis."

Curtis turned pale. "I'm going to send one of my men back in a launch to check up on your story. Carl, keep working on him to find out if it's true or not. But don't kill him, we may need him as a hostage."

Benton's stomach roiled. He had known this was likely, but dreaded it. He'd bought time, but that time was to be spent bound and helpless in the company of a sociopath who despised him. He must try to stay alert to any opportunity of escape. To allow mental collapse was to invite death.

Carl rested his hand on Benton's left, pressing the broken fingers down until he elicited an intake of breath.

"See, there it is. If Curtis'd listened I'd have told him you're the stupid heroic type who'd rather bleed than holler. You feed him a bunch of bull, that's one thing, but I don't buy it. You probably think you're pretty tough now, but I'm gonna make you cry like a baby. Then we'll see if you still lie."

The fingers hurt, but Benton knew he could stand it. He figured Carl as a man of little imagination. Unfortunately, he could guess where most of that imagination was used from the cruel anticipation on Carl's face.

Carl turned Benton's hand over so it rested palm up. He took his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit a fresh one off the one he was smoking. The fresh one went into his mouth, and he brought the old one down, still lit, running it way too close to Benton's broken little finger for comfort. The mountie could feel the heat radiating from the tip of it. Carl taunted him for a while with it. Benton showed no reaction. Eventually Carl got bored of this and pressed the cigarette against the finger.

Benton bit down hard on his tongue. He wasn't going to be bullied. He hadn't come back to Tuk to be a powerless child again. Carl pulled the cigarette away, looking disappointed. Then he pressed it down into the open palm of Benton's hand, holding it there until it was extinguished.

Benton squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on listening to the water around the boat... and footsteps? Benton opened his eyes. His hand seared with pain from the deep burn mark but he ignored it. He saw Sarah's sister. "Susan!" he exclaimed. "Thank God you're alive."

Susan Johnson walked over and slapped Benton across the face. "Son of a bitch, you think you're better than us, and we get one shot at making a bit of money, you have to come along and ruin it... you got out, you've got no idea what it's like being stuck here." She slapped him again, drawing blood from his lip, but he remained blank faced. "This was going to be our chance. We were going to get out of this place..." she had a head of steam up, but Carl interrupted her. "That's enough, Susan! Get back to the wheelhouse."

"Can't I watch?" Susan whined.

"No." Carl snapped. "This isn't pleasure, it's business."

Benton shuddered involuntarily at Susan's request and Carl's cold tone, which made the big man grin. "Well, I can mix business and pleasure." Carl said. "You were always such a smug little snot. I've been waiting a long time to take you down a few pegs."

After Susan left, Carl stood up and leaned over Benton, holding his freshly lit cigarette close to the mountie's face. Carl made eye contact with Benton as he moved the cigarette so it almost grazed the skin of his cheek. He grabbed Benton's left cheek and eyelid with his other hand, forcing the eye to stay open with his thumb and forefinger.

"Bet your hand hurts like a bitch, huh?" he said, with a gloating tone in his voice that turned to eerily cheerful menace with his next sentence. "But you better tell me the real truth. You're gonna tell me who knows about the whole thing, before this one burns down, or I'll find somewhere much more fun to put it out."

Benton made himself breathe as steadily as possible while Carl held the cigarette close to his face. Carl stared into him for what seemed like a long time, his gaze gleaming with a certain madness, before letting go of Benton's face and stepping back.

Benton couldn't stop himself from blinking his eyes shut and letting out a huge exhalation of relief. He hated the satisfied expression that Carl wore. His injured hand was shaking and there was nothing he could do about it. That was intolerable. Benton's resolve hardened, eyes turning to burnished discs of steel. Time was running out and Carl meant to break him. Telling the truth would probably just get him killed. Benton needed an opportunity to fight back before Carl's cigarette burned low. He would not go down without giving Carl all kinds of hell.

There was a thud toward the stern of the boat, and Benton heard shots overhead. What was that about an opportunity?

**Author's Note: Could that be the cavalry? Can Ray have come to his senses? Find out in Chapter 7!**

A quick note of thanks to my kind reviewers - While I'm having a lot of fun writing this, it's also hard work to make it as good as I possibly can, so it's always extremely heartening and much appreciated to see people's responses!

Apologies if you received alerts for this chapter more than once, I'm having some issues... technical issues. I mean I have other issues, but in this case, pure wrassling with the computer ;)


	7. For Those in Peril On the Seas

Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush. This chapter contains violence.

Chapter 7 - For Those in Peril On the Seas

Mark was surprised but pleased to see Ray.

"Raymond Vecchio! I heard you and Ben were in these parts, but I didn't expect to see you until the case was closed. Come in!"

"Hey, you're looking great, small town life must suit you!" Ray said. The retired hockey player made even broad-shouldered Benton Fraser look small, and he seem to have relaxed and lost some of the tension that had been tightly coiled in his body during his last weeks in Chicago.

"Yeah, I blew my career thanks to Ben, but he really brought me back to myself. I mean, it's nice to be able to trust people again."

"I know what you mean." Ray said. "That unshakeable faith that you're going to do the right thing. It really changes the way you look at people if you're not careful." He smiled, but it was soured by his bad mood.

Why, he thought, didn't Frase trust him enough to talk to him this morning? Ray tried to push the nagging thought aside as Mark showed him into the house, but he just couldn't let it go. It wasn't right. Why would honorable, decent, loyal Benton Fraser sneak off like that?

Of course Ray would have been pissed about being told not to come along, but still, Frase wouldn't chicken out like that, and he wouldn't leave Ray sitting around with his thumb up his ass while Susan was still missing.

It didn't make sense, and it struck him like a thunderbolt that it didn't make sense because it wasn't the truth.

Mark was talking but Ray wasn't listening as they walked into a pleasant family room. Ray was kicking himself. He'd let his stupid wounded pride and his anger at Fraser get in the way of solid intuition. When he'd had doubts he should have stuck with them rather than swallowing Rob Richards's explanation and accepting that Benton would screw him.

Benton's faith in people was an incredible source of strength, but it left him open to putting too much trust in the wrong person. Ray had believed Rob because Benton trusted the man he'd known since boyhood implicitly. Now, it seemed, that had been an error of judgment. As a result, Ray had allowed himself to think that Benton didn't need him or want his help, when right at this moment the exact opposite was probably true.

It was doubtless a salvation for Ray's sanity that he didn't know exactly how Benton was being tormented by Carl while Ray lost time figuring things out.

"Shit, shit, SHIT!" he exclaimed, to the surprise of Mark, who'd been rambling a little about life back in Tuk, unaware that Ray was miles away.

"Problem?" Mark asked.

Ray outlined the situation hurriedly. Mark added his own exclamation of "Shit!" when Ray was done.

Ray turned toward the hallway that lead to the front door. "I'm going to go ask Rob Richards some questions!"

"Wait a sec, I'll get my shoes on and come with you." Mark said.

"Quickly!" was Ray's only reply.

As they were headed out the door they heard a car pull up with a squeal of tires. They saw Sarah emerge from the car looking terrified.

"Ray, god, I drove all over town looking for your stupid rental car."

Ray rushed to her side. "Come in and sit down." he said. Being that agitated couldn't be good for a woman in her condition, he thought. If she was looking for him then there was no point hurrying off to find Rob before hearing what she had to say.

Sarah allowed Ray and Mark to settle her in a kitchen chair with a glass of water before she continued talking.

"I had to come find you. I heard Dad on the phone. I forgot to grab Joseph's kindergarten snack from the fridge, I don't think Dad heard me come in. I think he was talking to Mom. He said something about getting the yank cop out of the way okay, and they had to do this for Susan to be safe. Then he said they'd taken Ben somewhere and he was praying that'd be enough to get Susan back, because he thought Carl would..." her voice shuddered... "hurt Ben. But it would be okay if only Susan were safe." Tears were streaming down her face.

"Sarah. You said they'd taken Ben somewhere. Did you get any idea where?" Ray demanded.

Sarah closed her eyes, trying to remember the conversation. "He said, 'Carl took Ben out to the Harlequin, he promised that he'd trade Susan', then he listened for a while to Mom I guess and said "I can only pray he gives us Susan back. I can't live with myself if Carl hurts young Ben for no reason at all."

"The Harlequin." Ray looked at Mark, his eyes burning with anger. "That sounds like the name of a boat, right?"

Mark nodded. "We should check the docks." His expression was grim, too. The thought of his childhood friend in that kind of trouble made him want to break some heads. It was time to repay some of what he owed Ben.

Sarah insisted on driving them the short distance to the docks. She talked agitatedly on the way, trying to explain that her parents weren't bad, they were just so afraid for Susan. Mark was reassuring, but Ray couldn't say anything. He knew his animated features gave away just how furious he was. If something happened to Fraser and he didn't get there in time, there would be a comprehensive reckoning and it would certainly include Rob Richards. He could make allowances for a hysterical parent demanding he be taken off a case, but he couldn't make one single allowance for a hysterical parent using his best friend as an involuntary pawn in a hostage swap.

Ray wasn't surprised to find Diefenbaker already at the docks pacing one of the boat slips. He barked at the sight of Ray, as if to say "what's keeping you?" There was a small motor launch tied up, and without further ado, Dief jumped aboard it.

Ray turned to Sarah. "You should stay here. Try to contact Inspector Wheeler or anyone else on the investigation team. Last I heard they were still off chasing Arctic Defence, but we may need any backup we can get. Most of all, stay safe." As mad as he was at her father, he couldn't be angry at her, and he knew that her safety mattered a lot to Fraser.

Sarah nodded. "I can make calls from the harbormaster's office I'm sure." she said. She felt a huge burden of guilt at the risk her family's actions had put Benton Fraser in, and there wasn't much she wouldn't do to set things right.

Mark and Ray boarded the boat and Ray cast off into the harbor. Dief seemed to know what direction they should be going in, so Ray pointed the boat more or less where the wolf indicated. It wasn't long before a motor yacht sitting at anchor came into view, "Harley Quinn" painted clearly across the stern.

"Bingo." said Ray. He took out his service weapon. "Can you use one of these?" he asked Mark. Mark shook his head but held up his hands "No, but I sure know how to use these." Ray thanked any powers that were listening that he'd had the thought of visiting Mark. An extra fighter on his side might make all the difference going into a hostile situation where he didn't know how the numbers stacked up.

Luckily for Ray and Mark, Curtis was expecting the man he'd sent to check out Fraser's story, so the approach of the motor launch didn't draw any undue attention. There was a built-in ladder to the port side of the stern, meant so people could swim off the boat without problems re-boarding, and Ray stopped the launch's motor and made it fast, rather unorthodoxly with some convoluted knots in the rope, to the ladder.

The first obstacle was getting Diefenbaker onto the boat. That was the thud that Fraser heard from where he sat in the upper deck, as Mark launched the scrambling wolf up the ladder and over the side of the boat. Ray started to move around the side of the cabin, staying low, Mark and Dief trailing him. In the bridge of the boat, toward the bow, Susan Johnson turned around in time to see the two men and the wolf approaching. She tugged on Curtis's arm and he was first to fire his gun, leaning out of the bridge to shoot at Ray.

At the sound of the shots being exchanged Carl looked toward the door in surprise. Benton was fully alert. Any trace of pain and fatigue were gone from his face, leaving only adrenaline driven determination. The opportunity he had been waiting for was given to him, and he was not going to waste it.

With the weight of his whole body Benton threw himself against the table, using both hands to lift the edge, ripping the screws out of the flooring of the deck with berserker strength lent him by the certain prospect of death if he failed. He moved forward like a bulldozer with no thought for his broken fingers. The main thing was to put Carl down for long enough to get out of the confined space. He managed to use the table to slam Carl into the door frame, the big man falling heavily. He made it out the door that faced toward the stern of the boat and down the steps onto the main deck.

Benton heard shouting, Ray's voice calling his name. He couldn't see Ray. Ray was concealed from Fraser by the cabin, crouched on the port side of the boat nearer to the bridge, using what little cover there was from a stack of floatation devices to shoot at Curtis.

Benton yelled back: "I'm OK Ray. There should be two in the bridge, but one coming back-"

He didn't get to finish his warning about the man who'd left in the launch earlier, as Carl barreled down the stairs from the upper deck. Fraser's hands were still tied, but he was lighter and more agile than Carl, so the fight wasn't all to the bigger man. Fraser was happy that Carl, in his shock, had not stopped to find his gun wherever it had landed when he shoved the table over.

Ray couldn't leave his position. When he wasn't shooting he had one hand on Dief to keep the impulsive wolf from ending up in the line of fire, but he gestured with his head to Mark, who nodded and moved as inconspicuously as he could toward where Carl and Fraser were fighting. As Mark was moving, he heard the whine of another small boat approaching. He reached the space near the ladder at the stern in time to see a man appear over the side of the boat, pushing Sarah Little in front of him.

Where he was standing with Sarah in the farthest corner of the stern from Fraser, the man was in full view of both Fraser and Carl, to the starboard side of the stern, and Ray who was at right angles to Fraser, closer to the bow of the boat on the port side.

Ray trained his gun on the man holding Sarah. Currently there were two of the bad guys with guns and just him armed on the other side. Mark stepped out of Ray's line of fire while Diefenbaker's hackles rose.

Curtis came out of the bridge with Susan at his side. Sarah gasped at the sight of Susan, but didn't say anything. She didn't know what to say. She had been so afraid when the man had found her hanging around the dock waiting for the police and hauled her off in a stolen launch to bring her to the Harley Quinn. Now she was scared for both herself and her sister.

Curtis took in Sarah's condition in one glance and shouted so that everyone on board could hear.

"I suggest that you all surrender now, so that I am not forced to shoot the pregnant woman. No-one wants that, I assure you."

Benton looked over at Sarah, a fleeting glance in the middle of his unbalanced struggle with Carl. The man holding her gestured toward him and said "You, stop moving or she gets it."

Benton saw no alternative. He stood still and raised his bound hands slightly, indicating his compliance. Carl grinned viciously and took a free swing at Benton, sinking his fist into Benton's solar plexus. As the mountie doubled over, Carl grabbed him and pulled him into a choking headlock, a thick forearm pressed into his windpipe. Benton's eyes stayed fixed on Sarah. Now, it was her survival that was paramount, not his, though he couldn't imagine what he could do to help her.

Ray did not put his gun down. He was positioned between where Susan and Curtis stood, and Sarah and the gunman. As far as he could see, he could get a clear shot at the man holding Sarah, or at Curtis, but not both. He wasn't willing to surrender his weapon until it became absolutely necessary.

"You. Drop your weapon." Curtis commanded. Ray risked the barest glance over his shoulder. It didn't look like Curtis was ready to fire yet. He couldn't make out what Susan was thinking, her face was expressionless.

"Do it!" Curtis's voice was rising in pitch as well as volume. "I will shoot the woman, and if you shoot me, my man will kill her anyway."

Benton wished he could see more than just Sarah and the man holding her. It was impossible to act without knowing more. Then he heard two shots coming from the side of the boat Ray was on, and saw Diefenbaker surging across the deck in a streak of muscled grey and white to latch his teeth onto the wrist of the gunman holding Sarah.

Carl tightened his grip cruelly, almost cutting off Benton's air. Benton, seeing that Sarah was headed toward where Ray must be, while the man who had been holding her tried to fight off Diefenbaker, calculated that it was time to for him to fight back again.

What happened on the other side of the boat was that the second time that Curtis threatened Sarah, Susan had grabbed his arm and started to wrestle with him for his gun. The gun went off, hitting Susan, and she went down heavily. Ray shot Curtis, and while Diefenbaker tackled the other gunman, who'd been thrown off balance by seeing Curtis go down, Sarah, Ray and Mark ran over to where Curtis and Susan lay.

Curtis was dead. Susan's leg had been grazed deeply by the bullet. Ray picked up Curtis's gun and put it in his pocket. He and Mark carried Susan into the wheel room. She seemed to be losing a lot of blood quickly.

Benton kicked out hard behind him, scraping the heel of his workboot down Carl's shin after connecting with his kneecap. Carl reacted with surprise, loosening his grip enough for Benton to swing around and bring his left elbow up underneath Carl's rib cage. This bought Benton his freedom from the headlock. He turned and kicked Carl's knee again with as much force as he could, then ran a few steps toward where the other man was trying to wrestle free from Dief.

Benton didn't make it far before Carl's arm shot out and grabbed him by the shoulder, spinning him around. He ducked one punch from Carl, but a second connected with his jaw, sending him reeling back toward the rail on the stern of the boat. He looked over the edge at the dark water, and back at Carl who was between him and any semblance of safety. He tried to edge around Carl, blocking Carl's heavy blows as best he could with his bound hands, but he was dizzy and off balance and Carl was a juggernaut of rage.

He heard Diefenbaker yelp sharply and glanced over to see the wolf being kicked into the side of the cabin by Curtis's gunman. Dief lay still. In that momentary lapse of attention, Carl got his hands around Benton's throat and started to squeeze, quickly cutting Benton's air supply. Benton felt utterly lost, unable to stop Carl from choking him, and terribly afraid that Diefenbaker was hurt too. The gunman yelled over to Carl, "Curtis is down. It's time to bail. Finish the hostage and get your ass over here!"

Carl's grip loosened on Benton's throat, to Benton's surprise. But then he saw why. In Carl's eyes he could see the man calculating the cruelest way to kill him. Benton summoned one last burst of strength. He might die, but _not_ by Carl's hands. He arched his body back over the railing of the boat, using his legs to create as much momentum as possible. Carl found himself holding on to a man diving irrevocably overboard, and had no choice but to let go or plunge in with him.

All Benton knew was the sudden shock of cold, and the sky receding above as the water swallowed him and drove the remaining air from his lungs.

---

**Author's Note: Uh. I promise I will eventually put him back the way I found him. Please review, it makes me smile! **


	8. Not Waving, Drowning

Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush.

Chapter 8 - Not Waving, Drowning

"Is she okay? Is she going to be okay?" Sarah hovered over Ray and Mark as they tended to Susan, working hard to keep rising hysteria from her voice. Mark had grabbed the first aid kit that hung on the wall of the bridge, and he and Ray were trying to clean the long, deep graze that ran down Susan's left leg and get enough compression on it to control the bleeding. Ray looked up. "It didn't hit an artery, but it's still bleeding too much. If we keep compression on it a while, she should pull through. Go sit down before you fall over." he said curtly.

Ray looked around the bridge from his kneeling position beside Susan. "Where in hell are you, Frase?" he snapped, worried beyond sensible words. The last he'd heard was Benton yelling, and there hadn't been gunfire from that side of the boat, but so far there was no sign of his friend, and there were still two hostile men unaccounted for.

Sarah retreated to the Captain's chair, but kept her eyes on Mark and Ray as they worked, wiping the wound out with antiseptic fluid, padding it with gauze and bandaging it tightly, using their hands to add extra compression. Mark had seen plenty of nasty injuries before on the ice, but never a wound that exposed the flesh under the skin quite like that, and he struggled to keep his own composure. They kept the compression steady, Ray fidgeting and glancing at the door constantly. When they heard the motor launches start as Carl and the other gunman escaped, Ray leapt to his feet and drew his gun.

"Go." Mark said. "I've got it. Go find him."

After several minutes Susan's eyes opened. "Sarah?" she said, in a very shaky voice. "Sarah?" Sarah came over to sit by her, sliding herself down onto the floor. "It's okay, Susan. You're going to be safe now. Carl's gone and we're going to get you to hospital." Susan didn't answer, and Sarah didn't know how to read the expression on her face. All Sarah knew was that whatever happened before, Susan had in the end chosen to protect her.

As soon as Susan was talking, Mark stood to go after Ray. "Sarah, we'll be back with Ben." he said, taking his jacket off and placing it over Susan to help with the inevitable shock from the wound. He had a very bad feeling about Benton's continued absence. Sarah didn't look optimistic either. Her normally cheerful face was full of fear for her sister and her old friend.

Diefenbaker stirred and rose to his feet unsteadily. He shook his head as if shaking off dirt, and looked around. Something was wrong. He sniffed the air. Lots of blood, but not his pack-mate's. Where was Fraser? He sniffed again and found pain and fear. He trotted around the edge of the boat until he reached the place the smell was strongest and put his front paws up on the railing to look over into the dark water below. His pack-mate was struggling in the water! Not good!

He set up a frantic barking. All that blood he smelled was from two people, and thankfully neither of those people was the annoying balding one, who could be trusted to look after his pack-mate.

Benton had finally stopped struggling in the water. His first instinct upon regaining his senses after surfacing from the arctic waves was to swim around the stern of the boat to get to the ladder. His bound hands, the wet rope tightening, made it difficult to get much forward movement. He thrashed, the water seething around him.

Far too late Benton realized that he needed to conserve energy. With the effort he was using to move, precious heat was also draining from his body, speeding up the process of hypothermia. He heard Diefenbaker barking on the deck above. Benton tried to call out for help but a wave bobbed him under, filling his mouth with sea-water and making him gasp and splutter for air.

Ray ran around the side of the boat to where Diefenbaker was barking. He leaned over the edge and saw Benton treading water. Ray searched urgently for the Harley Quinn's inflatable life raft. The language he used when he found it missing from its storage locker turned the air blue. Apparently Curtis's gang weren't too keen on safety. Ray kicked the side of the boat. He had wasted precious minutes that seemed to stretch into hours in his desperation. He'd hoped that the raft would be the fastest way to get Fraser to safety, but that hope turned out to be empty.

Ray had started to strip off his coat to dive in and rescue his friend when Mark grabbed him roughly by the shoulders. "You can't go in after him, you'll both end up dead." he said, holding Ray back.

"We gotta get him out of there." Ray said. There was no simple way to haul Benton back onto the boat. Mark cursed Carl and the other gunman for taking both of the launches. He grabbed a floatation device. Ray had found a long coil of rope and secured it to the railing of the boat, letting it down into the water.

"Frase!" he yelled. "Grab the rope." Benton grabbed the rope with his good hand but he couldn't hold onto it well enough to get any traction against the side of the boat. It slipped from his hand as he tried to climb.

Mark looked over the edge of the boat too. His friend had been in the water too long already considering how cold it was. Mark threw down the floatation device, but Benton didn't seem to be able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. He ignored it as it floated past. Mark groaned. "Come on, Ben!" he yelled "Tie the rope around your waist, and we'll pull you out."

"I'll try." was the less than optimistic answer. Benton fumbled with the rope. His left hand was all but useless and the ropes joining his hands limited his dexterity. Diefenbaker was still barking, sending a vital message that he had to get out, but after trying to tie the rope for an agonizing few minutes, he felt a peaceful sense that he needn't bother. It was quite nice in the water. He might float a while.

He let the rope slip from his hand, the waves licking at his face. Ray shouted with frustration. "Come on, Benny, you need to hang on."

"I'm all right down here, thank you kindly." came the muffled reply.

Mark's mouth drooped in a grim line. "That's not good. If he won't let us help him, you may have to go in after all."

Benton drifted for a moment before a bigger wave slapped him across the face, and the sound of Diefenbaker's increasingly urgent barking penetrated the fog in his mind. Wait. He was feeling great and like he didn't need help, but he was in near-freezing water? That wasn't right.

Benton blinked a few times trying to clear his head. Must let them rescue him. He started to try to tie the rope again, teeth gritted. Being irrational and confused meant that hypothermia was setting in too fast.

Benton's thoughts drifted from the rope, fascinated with this new idea. It was probably because of the knock to the back of his head. Concussion, he thought, could be the culprit. And, of course, he didn't have much subcutaneous fat. He stopped to look at his arm, seeing it in wonderment like an anatomical study of the layers of skin, the long bands of muscle underneath, the bone supporting it all. Benton wriggled his fingers, just staring at the play of light and water on the skin and muscle.

Ray took off his coat. "Looks like I'm going to have to do this."

Mark growled with frustration. That would make their rescue efforts harder, but they did have to get Benton out soon, and their luck so far was worse than lousy. "COME ON, BEN!" he yelled as loudly as he could. Ray yelled too: "BENTON FRASER, IF YOU DON'T GRAB THE ROPE RIGHT NOW, I'M GONNA FLY FRANCESCA UP HERE TO NURSE YOU BACK TO HEALTH."

That got Benton's full attention. Once more he struggled to snap out of the haze of deluded thoughts. He grabbed at the rope with his good hand and with much concentration managed to tie it clumsily around the wrist of his left hand and then grip it firmly with the right. It would put much more strain on his shoulders than if he'd tied it around his chest or waist, but it was the best he could manage.

Above him, a small cheer went up. Ray and Mark started hauling on the rope to pull him out of the water. Diefenbaker leaned over the edge precariously, ready to pick his pack-mate up by the scruff if necessary. As Fraser got closer to the deck Mark was able to lean over and grab him bodily. They lifted him onto the deck as gently as possible.

"Give me a hand. We have to carry him carefully." Mark said in a low voice to Ray. "His heart could be pretty weak."

They moved him to the bridge. Mark went below deck to raid the sleeping cabin for blankets. Sarah looked up from tending Susan, whose bleeding had slowed to a level that the bandages provided sufficient compression for the time being. Sarah gasped in horror at the pale form of Benton Fraser.

"Quick," Sarah said to Ray. "First, we have to get those clothes off." They worked fast to strip Benton, unresisting, down to his shorts. Ray produced a pocket knife to slice the rope around Benton's wrists and the sodden laces of his boots. Mark came back with two blankets and a pillow.

"One of us is going to have to pilot the boat." Sarah said. "As I'm not going to be great at this getting up and down off the floor, I'll do that." There was no sign of her earlier hysteria. Now she was in mother bear mode, readily giving orders to make sure her wounded charges got to safety.

Mark nodded in agreement. "We need to get these two to medical care."

Susan was glaring in Benton's direction. "Wish you'd left him to drown." she said, her voice full of spite. Once again, Mark had to physically hold Ray back from impulsive action.

"That's enough, Susan!" Sarah said. "The dear boy almost died trying to help us. I don't want to hear another word." Sarah was shocked by Susan's venomous outburst. Sarah couldn't understand how the sister who could protect her unthinkingly could harbor so much hate toward someone who'd tried to rescue her. There wasn't time to sort it out now. Susan settled into a sulky, defiant silence. Sarah turned back to Mark and Ray.

"You guys will have to re-warm him." she said. Mark had draped a blanket over Fraser's head and shoulders, and Diefenbaker was pressed against his side, but it wasn't going to be enough. Mark stripped his sweater and shirt off. Fraser would need skin to skin contact to warm up properly. Ray's eyebrows raised. Now it was going to be semi-naked group hugs? Not really his thing. On the other hand, he was not going to make a fuss if Benny needed him. He followed suit, taking off his flannel shirt and t-shirt, and the two men arranged themselves on either side of Fraser, forming an impromptu bed for him with the pillow in the middle to support his bruised head. Sarah draped the last blanket over all of them. "Don't let him try to move to much." she warned Ray. Mark was a local. He knew the drill. Cold blood recirculating too fast from Benton's arms and legs could just make his body temperature drop more.

Mark was on Benton's left hand side and Ray on his right. Diefenbaker was lying across Benton's lap, the damaged hand curled gently into his fur. Mark reached for the first aid kit and tried to examine Benton's hand. Benton pulled it away with a wince and Dief lifted his head and stared at Mark with a warning look in his eye.

"Okay boy." Mark said. "I won't try that again." Dief looked satisfied and rested his head back down.

Sarah raised the anchor using the automatic windlass and turned the yacht around toward dock. The motor yacht was relatively simple to pilot for a local girl used to messing about in boats. She radioed the police and ambulance service to meet Harley Quinn. Most of the police task force had been off raiding a supposed Arctic Defence headquarters, but now they were on the move to pursue the rest of the people involved in the scheme. An ambulance would be waiting for the Harley Quinn at the docks to take Benton and Susan to the airport to be airlifted to Inuvik.

Benton's eyes, pupils dilated, were roaming the bridge as if looking for someone. His icy hand tugged at Ray's arm agitatedly.

"Ray!" he said. His voice was weaker than usual and his teeth had begun to chatter.

"I'm here, Benny."

"Ray, you were right. I should have listened. Rob told Carl... Carl... he's got a gun."

"Listen, Benny, it's all over now. I've got my gun, Mark's here too, and Carl's probably miles away."

Mark had no more practice at playing nurse than Ray, but he chimed in with "We're right here, Ben, nothing's going to happen." He'd have been more at ease using his fists than he was being comforting, but Carl wasn't there, and Benton was, and needed him.

Benton settled down for a moment, then the fretting started anew. "Ray, is Sarah all right? They have Sarah. We have to help her."

"I'm fine, Ben." Sarah said. "They're gone. You can relax and get warm."

Benton started struggling. Ray and Mark had to restrain him gently, while Dief used his soft weight to keep the lower half of his body still.

"Ray, please." Benton turned to look at Ray, his eyes wide. "Don't let him. Please."

"What is it?" Ray said. "Sarah's okay. We're all safe now. Carl took off."

"Ray... don't let him." Benton mumbled, turning his head away from Ray, as if even lying half-conscious he was mortified to have to ask for help. "Please don't let Carl burn me."

Ray felt the burn of acid in his throat and nausea churning in his stomach at the sight of the stoic Fraser rambling in this weakened and confused state. It was a physical sense of overwhelming bloodlust toward the man who had hurt his friend. "We won't let Carl get to you. Don't worry, Benny. I'll go after Carl myself."

"He's too dangerous, Ray."

"Shh. It'll be okay. We can both go after him. We're partners, right? And you guys, you know, you always get your man. Says right there in your motto." he said, trying to sound soothing and patting Benton's tense shoulder.

"No, that's not-"

Suddenly, Benton's eyes snapped into focus. The others turned to see what he was looking at in the small bridge but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"Dad." Benton said. His father's ghost crouched beside him, taking off his ghostly uniform hat.

"Well, look at what a mess you are." the ghost said. "You need to settle down, son. You're upsetting your men."

"Oh."

"What are you doing lying about, anyway? You just took a little dip."

"I'm so cold, Dad. Am I dead?

Ray and Mark exchanged worried glances over Benton's head as he had a lucid and troubling conversation with thin air.

"No, for goodness sakes, you're not dead. Better not be, either, you have a man to catch as soon as you're back on your feet." was the brusque reply.

"But Dad. I'm scared." Benton said, very quietly.

"There's no reason to be scared. Your men will take care of you. He's not coming back now." Bob Fraser's ghost said in a gruff tone. "Relax, son. You need to rest." He put out a hand in a strained gesture of comfort, only to pull it back when he realized it would pass right through his very much alive son.

The ghost cleared his throat awkwardly. "I can't believe I'm going to do this. Your mother used to sing this to you."

"Hush little baby, don't say a word... boy, I feel ridiculous, papa's going to buy you a mockingbird. And you look ridiculous. And if that mockingbird don't sing... you're a grown man... papa's going to buy you a diamond ring." He interspersed the lullaby with grumbles, but it had the desired effect. Benton's body relaxed, and his eyes stopped wandering the bridge. Ray and Mark noticed with surprise that he was smiling, a sweet, almost childlike smile.

Ray felt Benton's wrist. The pulse was slow and weak but steady. Sarah glanced across from the wheel, nervous at the sudden quiet. Benton looked so young, he looked just like the little boy she used to idolize. She couldn't bear the thought of letting him down. "Hang in there, Ben." she said. "We're going to get you home safe."

**Author's Note: One more chapter and a little epilogue to go. Hope you've been enjoying the story so far! Please review and let me know what you thought!**


	9. The Perils of Popularity

Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush.

Chapter 9 - The Perils of Popularity

Benton Fraser awoke in a hospital room feeling a lot more mentally competent than the last time he'd registered any sort of consciousness. Morning light was streaming through a window to one side of him. On the other side a blue curtain on a metal rod was pulled closed, giving him privacy. He took stock of the situation. He was hooked up to the usual array of monitors, and had an IV running into his left arm and an oxygen tube tickling his nose. The two broken fingers of his left hand were taped together and splinted, and the burn on the palm bandaged. His wrists were also wrapped in gauze where the ropes had rubbed them raw. The hand throbbed angrily, and he had a few aches and pains, but overall he felt pretty good. Tired, almost exhausted, but a lot better than he could have been. The last thing he remembered clearly was seeing Diefenbaker go down. After that his memory seemed to be like a grainy film strip cut and re-spliced into snippets of unrelated impressions.

There wasn't much from before the Harley Quinn had tied up at the dock. After that, he remembered trying to get to his feet to walk out under his own power, and Mark leaning over him and telling him to "sit your ass back down", in firm but not unkind tones. He remembered seeing Ray, who, having pulled his t-shirt and shirt back on, finally looked scruffy enough to be a true local. He could only picture the volunteer EMTs who stretchered him off the boat as comfortably familiar faces, not clearly enough to put names to them.

He remembered looking across inside the old ambulance that served Tuk, and seeing Susan's dark eyes projecting implacable hatred toward him. And then later in the ER, meeting eyes with Inspector Wheeler across the room and seeing her look at him like a human, not a piece of meat, for one instant, her gaze a mix of tender concern and irritation.

He thought he remembered being told that his wolf would have to wait outside, but either he was imagining that or Dief had pulled some kind of stealth entrance. Diefenbaker was sitting watchfully to the left side of the bed. Fraser turned his head. "So, they let you in here." His voice sounded strange and husky to his ears.

The curtain around his bed twitched open and a fresh faced looking nurse appeared.

"Mr. Fraser, you're awake, good! How are you feeling?"

She was fussing about, fixing his pillows and taking his temperature with a space age thermometer that apparently only needed to be waved over his forehead to measure it.

"Quite well, considering, thank you." Fraser said. He coughed to clear his throat, and the nurse poured him a glass of water.

"You were a bit confused when we admitted you yesterday." the nurse said, writing in his chart. "I have to ask a couple of questions, just to check on your cognitive function."

"Please, go ahead." Benton said.

"Let's start with an easy one. What's your name?" the nurse asked.

"Benton Fraser." He was pretty confident on that one.

"Good. Who's Prime Minister?" she asked, watching him carefully for signs of difficulty.

"Ah! That would be Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien, known as Jean Chrétien, first elected to Federal office at age twenty nine. Did you know, by the way, that he was one of nineteen children, although tragically, only nine of his siblings, counting himself, survived childhood. Interestingly, in October of 1970, he was one of the-"

The nurse put up her hand to stop him, with a laugh. "Thank you, Mr. Fraser, I would say that there are no problems at all with your memory." She made a note in the chart.

"If you're up to it, there's an Inspector Wheeler who is demanding to see you." the nurse said. "And your friend went to get coffee, but he should be back soon."

"Detective Vecchio?" Fraser asked.

"Yes, he and the wolf both refused to leave your side, although it's a bit outside our normal policy. But the Detective was the only one who could talk your wolf into letting us change the dressings on your hand, and nobody wants to argue with a wolf, so we let them both stay."

Fraser sighed, and looked over at Dief, who had an incredibly self-satisfied expression on his face. He didn't have the heart to reprimand the wolf for following his over-protective instincts, even at the expense of hospital policy.

"Is it all right if I show Inspector Wheeler in?" the nurse asked.

"Of course." Fraser said. Then he regretted it. The predatory gleam that was often in her eyes scared him, and here he was dressed in nothing more than a skimpy hospital gown, with nowhere to run.

"Just a moment." he added. "If it's not too much trouble, would you mind waiting for Detective Vecchio to return before you show her in, please?"

The nurse nodded. "No problem!"

Ray and Catherine Wheeler entered the room together, Ray bearing a big cup of steaming hot black coffee.

"Hey, Frase, how you doing?" Ray asked, taking the seat beside the bed.

"Better than I could be, thank you." Benton said. "Hello, Inspector Wheeler."

"Constable Fraser." Inspector Wheeler avoided making eye contact with Benton. "I'm glad to see that you're recovering. Obviously thanks to your hard work and the information you provided me the day before yesterday, we were able to divert wasted resources from pursuing the Arctic Defence leads that we had, and as a result we were able to round up the major players in this affair. We have arrested several of the board of Nesbitt Loggie Curtis Engineering in Edmonton. We also captured one of the men who was on the boat yesterday, he seemed to have been attacked by a wolf," she looked dubiously at Diefenbaker, "and didn't get very far, but the other, Carl Johnson, is still at large."

Ray watched Benton closely to see how he'd take the news. Although Ray assumed (correctly) that Benton would never tell him what Carl did or threatened to do while Benton was captive on the boat, he'd heard enough while Benton was out of his right mind to guess that it was ugly. But Benton appeared unruffled by the fact that Carl hadn't been caught. Something stood out with surprising sharpness from among the jumble of memories of the day before. Ray had promised him that they'd go after Carl, that they'd get him. It wasn't just the promise, but the intensity with which he had said it that was ultimately reassuring.

Wheeler went on. "We also found some evidence suggesting that the NLC conspirators were the ones behind the rumors connecting William Campbell and Arctic Defence. Mr Campbell has sent his..." she seemed to have a hard time getting the words out "Apologies. For losing his temper."

Wheeler cleared her throat. "Your role in events has not gone unnoticed in Ottawa, I assure you, Constable. I'm sure you'll be the first to agree that we have had a successful collaboration on this case."

Benton wanted to point out that she'd actually ignored the information he brought her and denigrated his investigative abilities, but after all the fuss and publicity over the events surrounding his father's death he felt that it might be best if he let her arrange the story so that she and her team took the limelight. There was just one thing.

"Indeed, Inspector Wheeler. Of course, I'm sure you'll make certain that Detective Vecchio and the Chicago PD get the credit that they deserve for the international assistance."

He knew she wouldn't like that, and neither would Ottawa, but unlike Benton, Ray was ambitious, and he had more than earned the recognition.

Inspector Wheeler smiled stiffly. "Of course. I'm sure that your report and mine will accord on all the major points. Now, there's a lot of wrapping up to do, so if you'll excuse me..."

"Oh, one more thing, Inspector." Benton said. "I wanted to know how the cleanup efforts are going."

"It's going to take years, unfortunately. There was quite a bit of oil spilled, not to mention toxic chemicals and heavy metals in the water." Wheeler said. "Oh well. That's not really my concern, at least." She turned and left abruptly.

"What was that all about?" Benton asked Ray, his eyebrows raised.

Ray grinned. "Somehow word spread pretty fast about us breaking the case wide open and all the heroics on the boat. I gather you're still not too popular in Ottawa, and she was on the phone all yesterday afternoon taking the heat for screwing up to the extent that you once more emerged as the man of the day. And if that wasn't enough, I talked to Elaine and I guess Welsh called Wheeler up and told her that if you came back to Chicago with as much as one hair on your head out of place, he'd cause a diplomatic incident."

Ray chuckled. "No-one's exactly sure how he'd cause a diplomatic incident over a Canadian getting hurt in Canada, but it seems that as far as Welsh is concerned, you came onto this case from Chicago and you're one of his guys."

Fraser's eyes opened wide with surprise, and he couldn't help smiling. It felt very good to think that he was one of the Chicago PD's family.

Most of the day was spent drifting in and out of sleep. By the next morning, Fraser had a wicked case of cabin fever. The nice nurse told him the newspaper men were clamoring to see him, and all he wanted was to go out after Carl.

The doctor cleared him to leave at around noon. The nurses and security were still holding off reporters, so Ray, Benton and Dief were snuck out the back way of the hospital to a cab where Mark was waiting to take them to the airport.

Mark had kindly offered to put Ben and Ray up at his father's house. They couldn't go back to the Richards' home, obviously, and Mark wouldn't see Benton spend any time in a hotel when he had a bed to spare. Benton might be chaffing at the bit to get out after Carl, but he still hadn't regained his full strength.

The afternoon turned into a sort of open-house, with many people from the village gathering in the Smithbauer's family room to see Benton. Diefenbaker stuck tightly by Benton's side and patiently endured some good natured ribbing and some fussing over what a good wolf he was.

Ray sat in a chair across the room from him and watched. Benton's face had returned to its normal guileless placidity. He was too pale and had dark circles under his eyes, but if it weren't for the bandaged hand and some bruising around the jaw, you wouldn't know he'd been through any trauma worse than a few late nights out.

Ray mused that it was funny, you could probably know a guy like Benny for years and never notice that the open expression that looked like transparency was at the same time opacity so complete that it obscured emotions buried so deep that even Benton didn't realize they were there. While his face gave away nothing, the bandaged left hand that rested on Diefenbaker's scruff and occasionally curled as if to make sure the wolf was still right by his side said much more, if you knew what to look for.

Sarah Little came by with her husband Joseph, who'd flown back early from his trucking runs down south at the news of the danger she'd been in. They looked a comfortable, happy couple together, Sarah's smaller hand resting easily in Joseph's big, rough hand.

"You know that Susan's being held as an accessory to your kidnapping?" she said to Benton after asking how he was.

"Yes, I'd heard. I'm sorry, Sarah. At least she's safe. The court may be lenient because she saved your life."

Susan made a wry face. "I would be able to hope that if she weren't blaming everyone but Carl for what happened. Her lawyer said if she keeps making hostile statements about you, he may not be able to do much at all for her."

"Ah." Benton didn't know what to say; he couldn't honestly say that he hoped she got off lightly, he wasn't sure that it would do Sarah any good for Susan to be at liberty but furious at the world, probably including Sarah.

"Ben... my parents... there's no way for them to tell you how sorry they are. I heard you refused to have charges pressed against them."

Ben nodded, looking away for a moment. "They did what they thought they had to. Susan was in danger, I imagine Carl threatened her life."

"Still." Sarah said. "I just can't believe that Dad would- I can't believe he didn't tell us as soon as Carl called when you arrived in town, instead of passing on information behind my back. We could have helped then. I know you would have." She looked miserable, as if she were holding back tears. "If he could have seen what Carl did. He had no right. He knew Carl might kill you."

"Sarah." Ben said. "Your parents are good people, and they were terrified for Susan's life. I survived. I'm all right." He knew Sarah would need to forgive her parents if the three of them were to make it through the literal and figurative trials ahead of their family. She would need the strength of her parents, and they would need the steadfast light of goodness and courage that beamed out like a beacon from her.

"Sarah, you have to forgive them for the choice they made."

It was easy for him to say, because she needed to hear it, and easy for nine parts of his being to mean. If one part of him was instead possessed with feelings of betrayal and hurt at the way Rob Richards had thrust him into the path of Carl's malice, it didn't even make a ripple on his serene surface.

Ray sat glowering, glad that he was across the room listening, not taking part in the conversation. His feelings were ever nearer the surface than Fraser's and he was not inclined to speak nice words. Ray knew his friend, and if Rob Richards had come to Fraser and told him of the danger Susan was in, Fraser would have put his life on the line willingly. But it would have been with backup, with a plan, with Ray knowing where he was, not as a lamb to the slaughter. There was no excuse to his mind for Rob Richard's sheer disregard for Fraser's safety.

"I guess you're right. It's hard." Sarah replied to Benton. Joseph had one arm around her shoulders, steadying her. "I feel like I don't know my family. Susan... Dad... I feel like I'm losing them both. And even Mom didn't stop him. I just don't know how they could hurt you when you were helping us."

Joseph spoke up. "We'll get Susan all the help we can, love. This could be the wake up call she needs. And you know Ben's right about your parents. They may have screwed up seriously but you still need them, and they still need you, and the little one on the way needs a proper family with all of us." He reached down to caress her pregnant belly tenderly. "Thank god nothing happened to you on the boat." he said. Benton had a feeling it wasn't the first time he'd expressed that sentiment since flying home.

"I'm so very sorry you ended up in danger." Benton said, looking at Sarah, and then Joseph. It was clear to both of them that his apology was utterly sincere, even though it was no fault of his that she'd been in the middle of things.

Joseph said quietly "Sarah did what she had to do too. I wish I'd been here, but I'm proud of her, even though the thought of anything happening-" he choked up, and Sarah squeezed his hand. "I won't be letting her out of my sight for a while, you'd better believe."

Eventually almost everyone in Tuktoyaktuk had trooped through Mark's father's house. Finally Diefenbaker left Fraser's side to cruise the low side tables for leftover snacks. He still had his wolfish eye on Fraser, but the aroma of the strange and apparently ketchup flavored potato chips on offer had a lure he couldn't resist. Ray came over and sat by Benton.

"You look wiped, bud." he said. As an outsider he'd been spared from chatting with many of the locals. He hadn't been precisely ostracized but it was obvious that they were mostly there to gawk at the hometown kid who was an instant regional celebrity thanks to clearing up the sabotages.

"I admit, that was a bit of an ordeal." Fraser agreed, slumping from his upright posture in his chair. "You know how I feel about being the center of attention."

"Better rest up. Soon you gotta do the mountie thing and go get your man." Ray smirked.

Fraser smiled back, for once letting the stupid motto argument go. "No, Ray, I believe that you and I have to get OUR man."

**Author's note: There's a brief epilogue to follow shortly!**


	10. Home is Where the Wild Things Are

Disclaimer - I don't own anything/I'm not making any money/I'm just working off a major crush.

Epilogue - Home is Where the Wild Things Are

It was easy for Fraser to get permission to stay on the case and go after Carl. Arctic Defence had turned out to be two students with a great deal of passion and no common sense calling in to claim responsibility from a phone box, because they thought someone ought to make some kind of environmental capital from the sabotage incidents. If not for Fraser and Vecchio's investigation, Inspector Wheeler would have been in a lot more hot water from above about wasting time and resources.

Carl was the final piece in the case. Fraser and Vecchio had been right that no one but Curtis at the Inuvik branch of NLC had actually seen or met Carl, although the senior engineer was otherwise implicated in the case. Because Carl was the middle-man for everything, although the RCMP had the ringleaders of the scheme, they didn't have the perpetrators who'd actually committed the acts of sabotage, and worst, the bombing. Carl was the only person who could give them that information. It had been made clear to Wheeler that if Bob Fraser's son was available to track Carl, she'd better damn well make use of his skills.

Ray called Welsh to ask to use some of his accumulated leave to stay on the case with Benton, hoping that Welsh wouldn't mention the irony of him asking to use leave to pursue the follow-up to a case he'd bitterly protested being sent on.

"I really want to get this guy, and you know I have plenty of days stacked up."

Welsh was unaccommodating. "Vecchio, that's not going to happen. I'm not having you run around unofficially, possibly shooting people in Canada. That's a ready-made diplomatic incident."

"But sir!"

"Listen very carefully, Vecchio, I'm not having you run around unofficially."

Vecchio tried to interrupt to protest again, but Welsh stopped him.

"Okay, how about I spell this out slowly. You won't be there unofficially. You and Constable Fraser were both assigned to this case. If he stays, you stay."

"Yes, sir!" Ray said happily.

"Get this guy Johnson. You'd make a lot of important people down here happy if you can wrap up this case, including Gerard Francis. He's still following things, even now his daughter in law is out of the hospital."

It hadn't gone unnoticed by Welsh that both Fraser's report and the official report lavished praise on Vecchio's efforts, even while barely mentioning Constable Fraser's own role. Vecchio's report so far had been verbal, unprintable, and did nothing for the credit of one Inspector Wheeler. "It does us a lot of good to be able to give our northern neighbors a hand. But you better stay one step ahead of Wheeler's men and land Johnson." Welsh said. He refrained from mentioning that he'd taken an extreme dislike for Wheeler when she tried to tell him, in more diplomatic terms, not to worry his pretty little head about Fraser. Pissing off Wheeler by having Constable Fraser and Detective Vecchio bring Johnson in would be his personal bonus for having his department short a man a while longer.

Two days later, Fraser and Ray set out after Carl. It was quite a task to persuade Mark, Joseph, and several other of the able-bodied Tuktoyaktuk men not to form up a posse and come with them. General opinion held that Carl was headed south through the body of small lakes and streams interconnected by land that opened up between Tuktoyaktuk and civilization when the ice thawed in the spring. Ray could just see a posse of canoeing men in hot pursuit of Carl.

Out on the first larger lake that they came to, Ray was watching Benton handle the canoe paddle. His right hand gripped it strongly and he was using the two unbroken fingers and the thumb of his left hand to balance it deftly. Dief was back to his usual unruly self, running off at every portage they had to make to sniff the local wildlife, no longer clinging protectively to Fraser's side.

Ray realized that he'd be wrong to think that Tuktoyaktuk was Benton's turf. Out here it was clear that Tuk was no more home ground to Benton than Chicago. They'd made mistakes and lives had been at risk because they both were thrown off by being away from the places where they could trust their instincts without second guessing.

This wild land would never betray Benton's freely given trust, or abuse his open-hearted generosity of spirit, the way people too often had. Out here all the masks that made up Benton Fraser's civilized self fell away and no-one could mistake naivety or unease with the constraints of society for stupidity. Out here Benton had nothing to hide, he was all competence and joy, moving in his environment like an eagle gliding on a current. Ray's mouth twitched, his lips curling upward in amusement. Carl didn't have a clue what he was up against, and frankly, he didn't stand a chance.

**Author's Note: Well, it's done, and that makes me kind of sad. I did promise I'd put the lovely Constable Fraser back the way I found him, and I hope you find his condition satisfactory considering the hell I just had to put him through for my own entertainment.**

I am so happy to have had you all along for the ride, particularly the wonderful people who took the time to review and encourage me to continue.

I have something else in the works, but it's still at plot outline stage. Writing this has been the fine margin between sanity and a screeching mental breakdown during a tough month at work, so you can be sure that as long as work remains a harbinger of lunacy, I'll keep writing. If there are things in particular that you liked or disliked about how I wrote this story, please do critique and let me know so I can keep improving my skills.


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